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Old Catholic Maryland 



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ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONIrII 



Rev, William P, Treacy, 



AUTHOE^ -yp 



^' Irish Scholars of The Penal Days'^' Etc.^ Etc. 



And call to remembrance the works of the fathers, which 
they have done in their generations ; and you shall receive 
great glory, and an everlasting name. 1 Mac. : Chap, ii., v. li. 



ST. JOSEPH'S EECTOEY, 

SWEDESBOKO, 

NEW JEKSEY. 



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is ^mitt^tice JamcB, |^HrdfnaI iibbons, 

ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE, 
THIS BOOK 

is Post §tmitivim §tAiam 



BY THE 



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PRBFACK. 



The history of our Holy anJ Divine Religion in this 
New World is a truly beautiful and heroic story. In 
pondering over it we are moved to joyfully exclaim : 
'' How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the 
gospel of peace ; of them that bring glad tidings of good 
things." As we read of whole villages and entire tribes 
being cleansed in the sacred waters of Baptism, our 
hearts swell with unbounded gratitude towards the 
Author of all graces and mercies. Even Protestant 
writers glow with the fire of admiration as they depict 
the planting of the Standard of the Cross on the banks 
of our rivers and along the shores of our great lakes. 

What picture, indeed, can be more touching, or more 
inspiring than that of our early missionaries carving the 
fair sign of redemption on the tall forest trees ; of our 
black-robed chiefs preaching beside their rustic altars to 
red groups of savage warriors ? 

After having closely and calmly examined many old 
dusty records and yellow manuscripts I feel myself justi- 
fied in saying that the early apostles of Maryland deserve 
a brilliant chapter in the History of Christian Missions. 
Their zeal and fortitude, their devoted charity, their utter 
contempt of earthly comforts, their patience under wrongs 
and insults, their heroic conduct in the midst of dire 
hardships and great dangers, are worthy of the glorious 

men whose names are justly emblazoned in the histories 
iii 



IV PREFACE. 

of India, China, and Japan. The same spirit that ani- 
mated the missionaries who first explored the Mississippi, 
the Ohio and the Illinois rivers, the same spirit that fired 
the souls of the Fatliers as they sailed the great lakes of 
tie North, or the lazy and flower-lined streams of the far 
South burned steadily and brightly in their apostolic 
hearts. If martyrdom had presented itself to them they 
would have as joyously embraced it as did Isaac Jogue^ 
in the Mohawk Valley, or as the heroic priests, Lalle- 
mand and Broebeuf, did upon Lake Huron. 

At this distant date it is not easy to form a just esti- 
mate of the labors, pains and successes of the early 
missionaries of Maryland. That they were true apostles, 
that they were men filled with the fire of Pentecost is an 
undisputed fact. Though they reaped in joy, it may 
truly be said that they sowed in tears. Their journey to 
this continent in a miserable sailing-vessel was a fit 
prelude to the life they were henceforth to lead in the 
service of the slave and the untutored savage. Here 
they were to be deprived of the thousand comforts and 
advantages of the civilization of the Old World. With 
the poorest mode of conveyance they were obliged to 
travel over vast tracts of forest-country, and to cross sheets 
of water that seemed to have no limits. In cases where 
dispensations were required they had to communicate 
with an ecclesiastical superior who was separated from 
them by the waters of the Atlantic. Grave obstacles 
were often thrown in their way by those who should 
assist and cherish them. A vile soldiery were glad to 
hunt them down, while bigoted judges were only too 
happy to have an occasion to rebuke them, if not to con- 
demn them to punishment. With weary hearts and 



PREFACE. V 

bleeding feet they carried on the great work for which 
they had left their native land. Still they did not grow 
despondent. They bravely toiled on and kept the Lamp 
of Faith brightly burning beside the river, creek, and bay, 
and in the depth of the forest shade. They went around 
with the cross they loved hanging on their breasts, or 
shining in their hands, scattering the rich seeds of peace, 
joy, and virtue. Their apostolate was thrice blessed, and 
even non-Catholic writers speak as boldly and loudly in 
their praises as we have ventured to do. '' Before the year 
1649," says a generous and accurate Protestant historian, 
"they labored with their lay-assistants, in various fields ; 
and around their lives will ever glow a bright and 
glorious remembrance. Their pathway was through the 
desert; and their first chapel the wigwam of an Indian. 
Two of them were here, at the dawn of our history ; 
they came to St. Mary's with the original emigrants ; 
they assisted, by pious rites, in laying the corner-stone 
of a State ; they kindled the torch of civilization in the 
wilderness ; they gave consolation to the grief-stricken 
pilgrim ; they taught the religion of Christ to the simple 
sons of the forest The history of Maryland presents no 
better, no purer, no more sublime lesson than the story 
of the toils, sacrifices and successes of her early mission- 
aries." 

Though many of the Jesuits would naturally prefer 
laboring in England during the Penal Times to evang- 
elizing a new country, still this was not the case with 
all. Many a venerable Jesuit in England, many a 
novice, many a lay-brother, many a distinguished 
professor in the colleges of Liege, Watten, Bruges, and 
St. Omer's longed and prayed to be sent to Maryland. 



VI PREFACE. 

The story of the poor infidels who dwelt along the 
shores of the Chesapeake — or as that beautiful bay was 
known to the Spaniards, St. Mary's — touched many a 
generous heart in Europe, and when the English Provin- 
cial, Father Edward Knott, asked for volunteers for his 
American Mission, Jesuits, old and young, novices, 
Brothers, and Priests enthusiastically petitioned to be 
sent to work for the salvation of the hapless red men. 
From the letters of those who asked to be sent on the 
Maryland Mission, we can learn the motives that 
actuated the first Fathers here, and the spirit that guided 
them. Some wrote that in going to Maryland they 
wished to imitate the glorious St. Francis Xavier, Some 
asked to go there in hopes of winning a martyr's crown. 
All wished to go, that they might advance the glory of 
God, and procure the salvation of souls. ** Whether I 
die by sea in my journey, or by land in Maryland," 
wrote Fr. Christopher Morris from Liege, in 1640, '' sure 
I am I shall have as good, yea more glorious a 
sepulchre than in Liege. The cause will ennoble the 
death. The inconveniences of diet, apparel and lodging 
will be made easy and supportable, by the frequent 
memory of my Saviour's vinegar and gall, and naked- 
ness, and hard bed of His cross." In the same letter 
Father Morris said that he more highly esteemed '' the 
teaching of Christ's cross in all senses in Maryland to 
the most honorable chair either in Liege or all Europe 
besides." Father Lawrence Worsley wrote to Fr. 
Knott : *' I had no sooner heard the relation of the 
happy success of our Mission in Maryland, and the great 
hope of converting souls to their Lord and Creator, but 
I was surprised with no small joy and comfort; which, 



PREFACE. Vll 

nevertheless, was but little, compared with that which I 
received when I read those sweet and no less comfortable 
lines with which your Reverence invited not any one in 
particular, but all in general, to employ their lives and 
labors in the undertaking of so glorious an enterprise, of 
converting souls to God by means of that mission. And 
to tell you the truth, my joy was so great, that no 
thought nor word for a long time could come from me 
which resounded not, ' Maryland.' " Since the letters of 
St. Francis Xavier were read in the halls of Coimbra, 
Paris, Rome and Louvain, no letters from distant missions 
excited so much the zeal and enthusiasm of students and 
priests as those that came from Maryland. " Maryland " 
became a loved name, a cherished, a venerated name 
among apostolic men. '' Maryland '' became the watch- 
word among the English sons c^St. Ignatius. 

The names of many of the priests who attended to the 
spiritual wants of the Catholics of Southern Maryland 
are unfortunately forgotten on earth, but we feel confi- 
dent they are recorded in letters of golden light in the 
great Book of Life. Certain it is, that, at least for the 
first hundred years, they were, most of them, confessors 
of the faith, men who had suffered imprisonment and 
banishment for loyalty to conscience ; men who, like St. 
Peter, had worn chains for their love of the religion 
founded by the Crucified One. A great number of them 
were scholars who had distinguished themselves at the 
colleges of Rheims and Douay, at Liege and Louvain. 
Nothing can give us a clearer insight into the character 
of the early missionaries of Maryland than a careful 
examination of the libraries they formed. If these 
libraries can prove anything, they can show that the 



Vlll PREFACE. 

first Fathers in Maryland were serious and deep 
scholars. They seemed to delight in the study of 
learned and profound works. They daily communed 
with the ablest thinkers of Europe ; they continually 
feasted on the spiritual works of the most approved 
ascetic writers. On their tables could be seen the 
Summa of St. Thomas, the Commentaries of Cornelius a 
Lapide, the Controversies of Bellarmine, and the Annals 
of Baronius. That they made a careful examination of 
the Holy Scriptures is told by the fact that they had in 
their libraries many Testaments in Latin, Greek, and 
English. The learning of the missionaries is also shown 
by the fact that many of them, no doubt while yet 
students, wrote their notes on the margins of their 
books in the Greek and Hebrew tongues. 

It may not be out of place to note the fact, that many 
of the early missionaries of Maryland were of gentle 
blood. Many of them were born in lordly homes, amid 
the rich and beautiful fields of old England. It is a his- 
toric truth, that some of them were lineal descendants of 
those brave knights who accompanied Richard, the 
Lion-Hearted, into Palestine, and fought under the red- 
cross banner on the plains of Ascalon. Some of them 
could trace their noble pedigree back to the time when 
William, the Conqueror, landed on the shores of Britain. 
Not a few of them were allied by blood to one or other 
of the royal families of the British Empire. But better 
still, some of their number could count among their kins- 
men, heroes who died as martyrs for the faith of Christ. 
When we call to mind how many of Maryland's mis- 
sionaries were in youth nursed in the lap of luxury, how 
they were loved and honored by vast numbers of ser- 



PREFACE. IX 

vants and dependants, how their every wish was gratified 
by indulgent parents, we can more fully realize their 
sacrifice in coming on the mission, we can better appre- 
ciate the zeal which enabled them to endure the hard- 
ships and trials of their daily toils and duties. Among 
the missionaries of Maryland, we find a Copley, three 
Poultons, a Mosely, a Knight, a FitzWilliams, of Lin- 
coln, an Atwood, of Beverie, a Forster, of Suffolk, a 
Thorold, a Whitgreave, a Molyneux, and several mem- 
bers of the Brooke family. 

Neither the '' dry powder " of the Puritans, nor the 
famed claymore of the fanatic Highlanders, who came 
with the Parliamentarians, could destroy the pure faith 
handed down from their forefathers to the Catholics of 
Maryland. Persecution failed, ignobly failed in that favor- 
ed *' Land of Mary." The persecutor and his swords have 
long since descended into unhallowed graves, *' unwept, 
unhonored, and unsung." Even in the last century, St. 
Mary's county alone, became the mother of many another 
Catholic settlement, from Frederick to Kentucky. To- 
day the children of Southern Maryland keep the priceless 
pearl of Faith with them in many a home from Boston 
to the Golden Gate. The descendants of old St. Mary 
families have become distinguished missionaries in the 
far regions of the West ; they have become prelates of 
the Church, noted alike for their piety and learning ; they 
have shown themselves laymen, worthy of their grand 
old Pilgrim Fathers. The chaste daughters of St. Mary's 
have filled the cells of convents not only in Georgetown, 
Washington, Baltimore, Mobile, New York and Phila- 
delphia, but also in many a European town and city. 



X PREFACE. 

A few words about the custom which prevailed among 
early missionaries of having aliases : 

During the Penal Days cruel laws were in force against 
Seminarists and Jesuits who dared set foot in England 
and Ireland. In many cases, the penal laws against 
Catholic priests were also put into execution in the Brit- 
ish Colonies. In order, therefore, to escape detection, 
Catholic missionaries generally a.dopted assumed names, 
and put on various disguises. Outwardly they took 
upon themselves offices which became only laymen. 
They sometimes acted in the capacity of coachmen, clerks 
or booksellers. Often they were forced to assume char- 
acters more romantic. A priest was seen in Waterford, 
Ireland, '* with a ruffling suit of apparel, gilt rapier, and 
dagger hanging at his side." A Catholic bishop was 
seen in the same city dressed as a Highland piper, and 
playing martial airs upon the national instrument of 
Scotland. Sometimes the Fathers assumed military 
titles, such as colonel or captain. The Very Rev. Father 
General was occasionally spoken of as, '' his Lordship." 
Fr. Hogan says, in speaking of the Irish Jesuits : '* On 
account of the dangers to which they and the Catholics 
were exposed, the Jesuit Fathers took or gave false 
names ; thus Holywood i'^ Jo, Bus., and sometimes Bush- 
lock, Laundrie, the Pilot, etc. ; Archer is Bowman, or 
Bertram's eldest son ; Wise is Barbarossa ; O'Carney is 
De Franca ; Wall is Philaberto." Fr. Acquaviva, Gen- 
eral of the Society, w^as known as '' Claude Merchaunt at 
Rouen." By a glance at this book the reader will see 
how common was the practice among the Fathers in 
Maryland of assuming strange names. 

Though the Fathers were often screened by their aliases^ 



PREFACE. XI 

it was by means of their strange apparel that they the more 
frequently escaped the hands of their enemies. We learn 
from old records that they sometimes attired themselves 
in the trappings of worldings, put gay feathers in their 
hats, and wore " scarlet cloaks over crimson satin suits// 
If we consult old writers we can learn what spies a*nd 
priest-hunters thought of the adroitness of the Fathers 
in disguising themselves. Gee quaintly writes : " If about 
Bloomsbury or Holborn thou meet a good snug fellow 
in a gold-laced suit, a cloak lined through with velvet, 
one that hath good store of coin in his purse, rings on 
his fingers, a watch in his pocket, which he will value at 
^20, a very broad laced band, a stilleto by his side, a man 
at his heels, willing (upon small acquaintance) to intrude 
himself into thy company, and still desiring to insinuate 
himself with thee, then take heed of a Jesuit of the 
prouder sort of priests. This man hath vowed poverty. 
* * * * Many of the Sec. Priests and Friars go as gal- 
lantly as these, but the Jesuits have the superlative cog- 
nizance whereby they know one another, and that is, as 
I observed from this time, a gold hat band studded with 
letters or characters. Perhaps at another time they may 
have another mark, according to their watch-word given 
to them.'' 

It may not be out of place to remark here, that there 
was not much natural pleasure, if there apeared to be 
somewhat of romance, in the life led by the Jesuits in 
England during the Penal Days. We cannot help re- 
membering that in a*black, strong fortress, not far from 
the Thames, a hundred grave-like cells longed to receive 
them. We are still mindful that there were, in Christian 
London, a sharp axe, and a thick block that thirsted 



XU PREFACE. 

hourly for Jesuit blood. We have read, too, that when 
some of these gaily-attired Jesuits were stripped of their 
finery to be flogged, or to have their bodies quartered 
and burnt, rough hair-shirts were found close to their 
skins. 

The correspondence of the Fathers in Maryland is 
often a complete riddle to the uninitiated. Many of the 
expressions embodied in some old letters that we have 
seen, will, we believe, forever remain unexplained. In 
writing to their friends in England the missionaries used 
figures and metaphors never referred to by our rhetori- 
cians. Even the experts,who made a livelihood by hunting 
down priests, must have been sometimes puzzled to make 
out the meaning of some letters which came by unlaw- 
ful means into their possession. When some of the mis- 
sionaries wished to intimate that a great number had been 
baptized, they merely said: " During our journey water 
was in great demand." 

The writer of this little work has used in its prepara- 
tion, copies of the Roman Catalogues^ Annual Letters by 
the early missionaries. Baptismal Registers, old records 
and note-books, private letters, deeds, wills and convey- 
ances. He has also consulted the Woodstock Letters^ Br. 
Foley's English Records, Dr. Oliver's Collectanea, Dodd's 
History, the Annals of Annapolis, Father Hogan's Irish 
Records, and the Jesuit Archives of Maryland. To His 
Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons, the author is indebted 
for many facts gleaned from the Archiepiscopal Archives, 
To his esteemed friend. Dr. John Gtlmary Shea, the illus- 
trious historian of the Church in America, he gives thanks 
for valuable assistance. 



CHAPTER I. 



When the Pilgrim Fathers of Maryland, flying from 
cruel persecution in England, set sail from Cowes, in the 
beautiful Isle of Wight, in 1633, they had as companions of 
their voyage the Jesuit missionaries, Frs. Andrew White, 
John Altham, Timothy Hayes and Brother Thomas 
Gervase. The story of their voyage in the Dove and 
Ark, as told by Father White, is a charming and touch- 
ing narrative. Before starting, on the Feast of St. Cecilia, 
*^a gentle east wind blowing," they piously consecrated 
their little fleet to God, the Blessed Virgin, St. Ignatius, 
and all the Guardian Angels of Maryland. As they 
dropped down the British Channel, here and there along 
the shore some faithful and loving friends waved them 
a parting adieu, and knelt down to invoke blessings upon 
their heads. At Yarmouth and Hurst Castles they were 
greeted by cheerful salutes of artillery. Much, indeed, 
did the exile band need encouragement. A dangerous 
way spread out before them. Besides the storms and 
fogs to be faced, other sources of fear awaited them. 
Turks and Pirates, at the time, everywhere infested the 
seas and caused terror and dismay in the breasts of even 
the boldest who had to plough the deep. The protection 
of God and His Saints seemed the only shield for the 
poor pilgrims. On one occasion of distress they invoked 
the aid of St. Clement, and received by the powerful 
intercession of that Saint the needed succor. Almost 
every day, after losing sight of land, they encountered 

13 



14 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

new perils. Still, in the very midst of their trials and 
dangers they kept heart. Men of Faith never lose 
courage, never despair. On a pleasant evening, when 
the waters enjoyed a more than ordinary repose, they 
had some real, some home-like pleasure in racing with a 
fine merchant ship called The Dragon, 

After many delays, and much moving in out-of-the- 
way directions, the Pilgrims sailed out from the coast of 
Spain to the Fortunate Isles, and thence steered for 
Barbadoes. At Montserrat they m,et a colony of Irish- 
men who had been banished from Virginia on account 
of professing the Catholic Faith. After leaving behind 
them the last of the Caribbee Islands, they at length 
reached Point Comfort in Virginia. There they re- 
mained for a few days. On the 3rd of March they 
entered the Chesapeake Bay. '' We turned," says Father 
White, '* our course to the north to reach the Potomac 
River. The Chesapeake Bay, ten leagues (thirty Italian 
miles) wide flows gently between its shores ; it is four, 
five, and six fathoms deep, and abounds in fish when the 
season is favorable ; you will scarcely find a more beau- 
tiful sheet of water. Yet it yields the palm to the 
Potomac river, which we named after St Gregory. 

*' Having now arrived at the wished-for country, we 
allotted names according to circumstances. And indeed 
the Promontory, which is toward the south, we con- 
secrated with the name of St. Gregory (now Smith 
Point), naming the northern one (now Point Lookout) 
St. Michaels, in honor of all the angels. Never have I 
beheld a larger or more beautiful river. The Thames 
seems a mere rivulet in comparison with it ; it is not 
disfigured with any swamps, but has firm land on both 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 1 5 

sides of it. Fine groves of trees appear, not choked with 
briers or bushes and undergrowth, but growing at 
intervals as if planted by the hand of man, so that you 
can drive a four-horse carriage, wherever you choose, 
through the midst of the trees. Just at the mouth of 
the river we observed the natives in arms. That night 
fires blazed through the whole country, and since they 
had never seen such a large ship, messengers were sent 
in all directions, who reported that a canoe like an island 
had come with as many men as there were trees in the 
wood. We went on, however, to Heron's Islands, so 
called from the numbers of these birds that abound 
there. The first island we came to we called St. 
Clement's Island. 

" This island is covered with cedar and sassafras trees 
and flowers and herbs for making all kinds of salads, and 
it also produces a wild nut tree, which bears a very hard 
walnut with a thick shell and a small but very delicious 
kernel. Since, however, the island contains only four 
hundred acres, we saw that it would not afford room for 
the new settlement. Yet we looked for a suitable place 
to build a fort (perhaps on the island itself) to keep off 
strangers, and to protect the trade of the river and our 
bounderies, for this was the narrowest crossing-place on 
the river. 

** On the day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy 
Virgin Mary, in the year 1634," continues Father White, 
'' we celebrated on this island the first Mass which had 
been ever offered up in this part of the world. After we 
had completed the Sacrifice, we took upon our shoulders 
a great cross which we had shaped out of a tree, and 
advancing in order to the appointed place, with the as- 



l6 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

sistance of the Governor and his associates and the other 
CathoHcs, we erected a trophy to Christ, the Saviour, 
humbly reciting, on our bended knees, the Litanies of 
the Holy Cross with great emotion;' 

The final resting-place chosen by Leonard and George 
Calvert, brothers of Lord Baltimore, and the two ** hun- 
dred gentlemen adventurers and their servants " who 
sailed from England in the Dove and Ark, was the little 
Indian village, known in Maryland history as St. Mary's 
City. The fact that this ill-fated town"^ has almost 
entirely disappeared has long afforded writers a theme 
for much beautiful and pathetic description. At present 
scarcely *' a stone is left upon a stone " to remind the 
visitor that it once existed. A few scattered bricks, and 
a vault, the very names of whose occupants are un- 
known, are its only relics now. 

We may affirm, without fear of contradiction, that St. 
Mary's County, in which St. Mary's City was located, is 
one of the most hallowed spots on this continent. As 
Mr. Bancroft said, it was at one time '' the only home of 
religious freedom in the wide world."t Dedicated itself 
to the Virgin Mother, nearly all its rivers and creeks, its 
farms and villages, its roads, woods, and hills have been 
placed under the protection of saints and angels. The 
Mass-bell has been heard for more than two centuries in 
all its hamlets, and the Clean Oblation^ which was fore- 
told by the prophet, has been offered up in hundreds 

^ "St. Mary's never had more than sixty houses, but the settlers 
call town any place where as many houses are as individuals 
required to make a riot; that is twenty." Rec. Eng. Prov. Series 
vii. 

t Bancroft's Hist. U. S. vol. I, 246, 247, Boston, 1839. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 1/ 

aye, in thousands of its devout old homes. It has been 
sanctified by the labors and sufferings of devoted mis- 
sionaries, and by the faith and charity of a pious and 
truly Catholic people. 

St. Mary's County was, from its first settlement by 
European colonists, a Catholic colony, and is to this 
day, thank God, nearly as Catholic as Belgium, Ireland, 
or French Canada. It is true that the Protestant party, 
helped by the English Protestant or Puritan government, 
was, from time to time, in power, and finally, in the 
Revolution of 1689, gained complete ascendency; still 
the mass of the people always were Catholic. 

Mr. Davis, a Protestant author, writes as follows on 
this subject: 

" St. Mary's was the home — the chosen home — of the 
disciples of the Catholic Church! The fact has been 
generally received. It is sustained by the tradition of 
two hundred years and by volumes of unwritten tes- 
timony ; by the proceedings of the privy council ; by 
the trial of law cases ; by the wills and inventories ; by 
the land-records and rent-rolls ; and by the very names 
originally given to the towns and hundreds^ to the creeks 
and rivulets, to the tracts and manors of the country. 
The State itself bears the name of a Roman Catholic 
queen. Of the six hundreds of this small county, in 1650 
five had the prefix St. Sixty tracts and manors, most of 
them taken up at a very early period, bear the same 
Roman Catholic mark. The creeks and villages, to this 
day, attest the widespread prevalence of the same tastes, 
sentiments, and sympathies." 

St Mary's City was selected as the headquarters ot 
the missionaries. The wigwam of an Indian chief was 



1 8 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

converted into a place of worship, and thus the poor hut 
of a savage became the first chapel in Maryland. '^ As 
this humble shelter," writes Mr. Bernard Campbell, 
*' must have been too small to admit the colonists, it is 
most probable divine worship was performed in the open 
air. How interesting must have been the spectacle pre- 
sented on the first Sunday after the landing, when the 
venerable priest (Father Andrew White), assisted by his 
fellow missionaries, celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of 
Mass, with all the pomp and splendor which the humble 
means of the colonists enabled them to impart to the 
August Rite. Their Church was the great temple of 
nature ; the beautiful river of St. Mary spread her 
broad and mirror-like bosom at their feet ; around them 
were the deep forests, which, under the gentle influence 
of spring, had now begun to form the leafy canopy that 
sheltered our infant church.'* The idea of Lord Balti- 
more in sending Jesuits to Maryland was to afford the 
colonists all the succors and advantages of religion. He 
thought also of the poor savages who sat in the shades 
of unbelief But, no doubt, he gave them only a second- 
ary thought. But the missionaries could hardly be ex- 
pected to confine their ardent zeal to the little band of 
settlers at St. Mary's, while the woods around them were 
dark with the night and gloom of souls who lived in 
ignorance of all great Christian truths, to whom the clear 
vision of the Light of the World had never appeared. 
We know that almost immediately after the landing of 
the passengers of the Dove and Ark, Father Altham be- 
gan his work of evangelizing the Indians. Father White, 
after describing the celebration of the First Mass on St. 
Clement's Island, thus writes : '* Now when the Gov- 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. I9 

ernor had understood that many princes were subject to 
the Emperor of Pascatawaye, he determined to visit him, 
in order that, after explaining the reason of our voyage, 
and gaining his good will, he might secure an easier ac- 
cess to the others. Accordingly, taking along with our 
pinnace another, which he had procured in Virginia, and 
leaving the ship (the Ark) at anchor, he sailed round and 
landed on the southern side of the river. And when he 
had learned that the savages had fled inland, we went on 
to a city which takes its name from the river, being also 
called Potomac. There the young king's uncle, named 
Archihu, was his guardian and acted as regent in the 
kingdom ; a sober, discreet man. He willingly listened 
to Father Altham, who had been selected to accompany 
the Governor, for I was still kept with the ship's cargo. 
And when the Father explained, as far as he could, 
through the interpreter, Henry Fleet, the errors of the 
heathen, he would ever and anon acknowledge his own ; 
and when he was informed that we had come thither, 
not to make war, but out of good will towards them, in 
order to extend civilization and instruction to his ignor- 
ant race, and show them the way to heaven and at the 
same time with the intention of communicating to them 
the advantages of commerce with distant countries, he 
gave us to understand that he was pleased at our coming. 
The interpreter was one of the Protestants of Virginia, 
and so, as the Father could not stop for further discourse 
at the time, he promised that he would return before 
long. 'That is just what I wish,' said Archihu, * we 
will eat at the same table ; my followers too shall go to 
hunt for you, and we shall have all things in common.' " 
In the beginning our missionaries were obhged to reside 



20 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

at St. Mary's City, and not among the Indians as some 
of them desired. From their headquarters, however, 
they sallied forth, from time to time, in order to convert 
the savages. Love and esteem for the lives of the priests 
seem to have been the motive which urged the rulers of 
St. Mary's not to allow them to remain for any long 
period among the Indians. The Annual Letters for 
1637-8, say: ** Though the authorities of this colony 
have not yet allowed us to dwell among the savages, on 
account both of the prevailing sickness and of the hostile 
disposition shown by the barbarians towards the English, 
to the extent of murdering a man from this colony who 
had gone amongst them for the sake of trade, and also 
of entering into a conspiracy against our whole nation ; 
still we hope that one of us will shortly secure a station 
among the barbarians. Meanwhile, we devote ourselves 
more zealously to the English ; and, since there are Pro- 
testants as well as Catholics in the colony, we have 
labored for both, and God has blessed our labors. For 
among the Protestants nearly all who came from Eng- 
land in 1638, and many others, have been converted to 
the faith." 

Great piety, fervor, and peace soon reigned among the 
inhabitants of St. Mary's. Many of the leading gentle- 
men there made the Spiritual Exercises according to the 
method of St. Ignatius, and became exemplary Catholics. 
*'As for the Catholics," say the Annual Letters for 1639, 
*' the attendance on the Sacraments here is so large, that 
it is not greater among the faithful in Europe, in propor- 
tion to their numbers. The most ignorant have been 
catechized, and catechetical lectures have been delivered 
to the more advanced every Sunday ; on feast days they 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 21 

have been veiy rarely left without a sermon. The sick 
and the dying, who were numerous this year and dwelt 
far apart, have been assisted in every way, so that not a 
single person has died without the Sacraments. We have 
buried very many, but we have baptized a greater num- 
ber." 

The early government of Lord Baltimore's colony was 
patriarchal, and all the settlers lived something after the 
manner of the chosen people of old. It was not until 
their numbers had considerably increased that they 
thought of framing a code of laws and establishing a 
political constitution. In 1635, was convened the first 
popular assembly of Maryland, consisting of the whole 
body of '' freemen," by which various regulations were 
framed for the maintenance of good order in the Pro- 
vince. Two years later on, the second assembly of Mary- 
land was convoked. To this council the Jesuit mission- 
aries. Fathers White, Copley and Altham were sum- 
moned. The third assembly, was held in 1639, and was 
rendered memorable by the introduction of a representa- 
tive body into the provincial constitution. 

The infant colony of Maryland found itself surrounded 
on all sides by evils and dangers. The principal part of 
Lord Baltimore's followers, as Catholics, could hope for no 
help, no protection, no friendship from their Protestant 
parent country. They might well be thankful, indeed, to 
the rulers of that kingdom for being permitted to forsake 
without stripes and blows, their ancestral homes and 
hearths, and their rich and broad domains. Their next- 
door neighbors, the Virginians, watched them with an 
eye of envy and hatred. The Indians who surrounded 
them in the beginning, for the most part, were friendly 



22 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

towards them ; but how long could they rely on the fickle 
friendship of those red warriors whose " axe," as one of 
their chiefs truly said, ''was always in their hands ?" 

It is a fact of history, admitted even by Protestant 
writers, that the Catholic founders of Maryland treated 
the Indians in the most humane and Christian-like man- 
mer. " Governor Calvert," says Kilty, " made a free and 
fair purchase of the natives with articles suited to their 
state of life, and brought from England for that purpose. 
The prudence and justice which dictated this policy in 
preference to the forcible intrusion which had marked the 
commencement of the first Southern plantation, appeared 
to have governed the subsequent proceedings of the Pro- 
prietary and his Officers for extending their limits of 
possession." Still the redmen, sometimes stirred up by 
jealousy, at other times excited by the deceitful words of 
desperate plotters, who hated to see the Catholic colony 
flourishing like a garden, made deadly onslaughts upon 
the *' pale-faced " inhabitants of St. Mary's City. 

In 1 64 1 the Indians grew extremely hostile to all who 
were not of their race. The war whoop of the fierce Sus- 
quehannoughs could be heard almost within a bow-shot 
of the little capital of the Maryland settlement. Their 
light steps could be heard by attentive ears in all the en- 
circling woods. At dusk, too, their bark canoes could be 
seen by watchful eyes gliding silently among the tall reeds 
on the banks of the St. Mary's River. Often the flight 
of a frighted duck, or the cry of a heron, was the only 
signal given that the Indian foe was near. We cannot 
easily picture to ourselves the disturbed condition of life 
led by the peaceful and virtuous followers of Lord Balti- 
more during these days. They rested, if rest they could 



" ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 23 

under such circumstances, with their defensive weapons 
at their pillows. The missionaries, who had their head- 
quarters at St. Mary's City, shared in all the trials and 
hardships of the period. For a time, as they were mere 
prisoners, and could not accomplish the sublime end for 
which they had come, they thought of removing from 
the Capital to some place of more security, and in which, 
or from which, they could carry on their apostolic labors. 
'' Even the devoted and fearless missionaries," says a Pro- 
testant writer, '' began seriously to think of abandoning 
their station, and establishing themselves at Potupaco, 
which was less exposed to the ravages of the cruel and 
warlike Susquehannough tribe." 

About 1644, one year before the arrest of White and 
Fisher, St. Mary's City was endangered by the rebellion 
of the pirate Ingle and the desperado Claiborne. The in- 
famous histories of both these bad men are too well 
known to need a recital here. We allude to them at 
present as being the probable cause of the removal of the 
Fathers from the Capital to St. Inigoes. In the above 
year, when Claiborne took St. Mary's City by force, the 
missionaries were immediately obliged to fly for safety. 
It has been stated that they then retired to St. Inigoes. 
This was a part of the property taken possession of by 
the Fathers on their first landing with the pilgrims in 
Maryland. 

After some time Claiborne was expelled from St. 
Mary's City, but he and his Puritan party again suc- 
ceeded, in 1652, in becoming masters of it. It is not our 
intention to depict the battles fought between the con- 
tending parties from that time to the beginning of 1658, 
when the Lord Proprietary was once more reinstated in 



24 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

his lawful rights and authority. But as many of the facts 
that help to form the history of that period will throw 
some light upon the story of our missionaries, we shall 
glance at them in passing. 

After the defeat of Governor Stone, in 1655, the Puri- 
tans took many distinguished prisoners to Annapolis. 
Among these were Governor Stone himself, Colonel 
Price, Captain Gerard, Captain Lewis, Captain Kendall, 
Captain Guither, Major Chandler and all the rest of the 
councillors, officers, and soldiers of Lord Baltimore. 
Among the commanders and soldiers who fought with 
Governor Stone, we are told, were many papists. From 
these was taken all their " consecrated ware." *'The con- 
secrated ware " consisted of '^ Pictures, Crucifixes, and 
rows of Beads, with great stores of Reliques." Histo- 
rians tell us that the Puritans of Providence, now An- 
napolis, several days after the fight on the Severn, put to 
death, in cold blood, four of Governor Stone's men. 
These were William Eltonhead, one of the council. Cap- 
tain William Lewis, John Legatt and John Pedro. Per- 
secution again raised its " red right hand " in Maryland. 
The Catholics were prohibited from voting, and it was 
*' enacted and declared, that none who profess and exer- 
cise the Popish (commonly called the Roman Catholic) 
religion, can be protected in this province by the laws of 
England formerly established, and yet unrepealed ; nor 
by the Commonwealth of England, etc. ; but to be re- 
strained from the exercise thereof' Liberty was granted 
to all "provided'' it *'be not extended to Popery or 
Prelacy." 

The Puritans sacked and plundered the Fathers' Re- 
sidences at Portobacco and St. Inigoes. The following 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 25 

is the Annual Letter for 1656: "In Maryland, during 
the last year, our Fathers have passed safely through 
grievous dangers, and have had to contend with great 
difficulties and trials, as well from enemies as from our 
own people. The English who inhabit Virginia had 
made an attack on the colonists of Maryland, although 
their own countrymen, and having guaranteed their lives 
on certain conditions they carried off the Governor of 
Maryland, with many other prisoners. Their promise 
was, however, treacherously violated and four of the 
captives, of whom three were CathoHcs, were shot dead. 
Rushing into our houses they cried out death to the im- 
postors as they called us, determined on a merciless 
slaughter of all who should be caught. But the Fathers, 
under the protection of God, passed in a boat before their 
very faces, unrecognized by them. After which, their 
books, furniture, and whatever else was in the house, fell 
a prey to the robbers. With almost the entire loss of 
their property, private and domestic, and with great peril 
of their lives, they were secretly carried into Virginia, 
where they now are suffering from the greatest want of 
necessaries, and can find no means of support. Tbey 
live in a mean hut, low and confined, not much unlike a 
cistern, or even that tomb in which the great defender 
of the Faith, St. Athanasius, lay concealed for many 
years. To their other miseries this inconvenience is 
added, that whatever comfort or aid under the name of 
stipend was this year destined for them from pious per- 
sons in England has been lost, the ship in which it was 
carried being intercepted. But nothing distresses them 
more than that there is not a sufficient supply of wine to 
enable them to offer up the Holy Sacrifice. They have 



26 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

no servant, either, for domestic use, or for directing their 
way through unknown and suspected places, or even to 
row and steer the boat when needed. Often over spa- 
cious and vast rivers, one of them, alone and unaccom- 
panied, passes and repasses long distances, with no pilot 
directing his course than divine Providence." 

In 1688, the Orange Revolution swept over England; 
James was dethroned, and William and Mary took his 
place. The hopes of the Catholics were dashed to the 
ground, and these saw with dismay a new reign of terror 
inaugurated. Catholic schools and chapels were every- 
where closed, and priests and schoolmasters proscribed 
and banned. The next year, 1689, the English Revolu- 
tion extended to America. 

It does not enter into the scope of this book to tell 
how the Puritans took forcible possession of St. Mary's 
City. A full account of this sad event may be found in 
any history of Maryland. Suffice it is to say, that the 
venerated Catholic settlement was for a time in the hands 
of the bigotted '' Committee of Safety," and that this body 
passed over the government to Governor Copley. The 
first act passed by the Assembly convened by this gen- 
tleman was one recognizing the title of William and 
Mary. ''The next was an act making the Church of 
England the established church of the province, and thus 
putting an end to that equality in religion which had 
hitherto been Maryland's honor. It provided for the 
division of the ten counties into thirty-one parishes, and 
imposed a tax of forty pounds of tobacco upon each 
taxable person, as a fund for the building of (Protestant) 
churches and the support of the (Protestant) clergy," 
Governor Copley died on the 12th of September, 1693, 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 2/ 

and Sir Thomas Lawrence, his former Secretary, assumed 
the government ad iiiteriin as President until a new Gov- 
ernor should arrive. 

A new Governor soon arrived in the person of Francis 
Nicholson, well known in the histories of New York and 
Virginia. It is supposed by some that Nicholson was at 
one time a Catholic. I found, in '* The Documentary 
History of New York," the following sworn testimony 
to that effect : 

Affidavits Against Nicholson, 

The depositions of Nicholas Brown, Aged Twenty three 
Years, the said Deponent declares that he being in the 
Service of Y^ late King Anno One thousand six hundred 
Eighty Six some time in July and August, did see 
Frances Y^ late Heu* Governor of Y^ fort at New York 
severall times in Y^ Masse, but especially two times in 
Y^ Kings tent at Hunsloheath in old ingland, being there 
to Exercise his devotions, & did Y^ same upon his Knees 
before the Alter in the papaist Chappel, where the Mass 
was said, that himself, this deponent is ready to Confirm 
and declare upon Oath in testimony of the truth & have 
hereunto Set my hand. In New York this 12th day of 
Septem^ Anno 1689. 

Signed Nicholas Brown. 

1689 the 13th f^^ in New York 
Then appeared before me Nich^^ Brown Sz: sworn before 
me the aforesaid to be the truth. 

Signed G. Beekman, Justice. 

" Soon after his arrival,'' writes Scharf, "Governor Nich- 
olson convened the Assembly to meet on the 21st of Sep- 



28 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

tember, not in St. Mary's but at Anne Arundel town, 
afterwards called Annapolis. This choice foreshadowed 
the doom of the former city, the cradle of the province ; 
and at this session the removal of the seat of government 
was decided upon. The reasons alleged for the change 
were not without weight ; but it is probable that the true 
motives were to be found in the fact that St. Mary's was 
especially a Catholic settlement, was, beyond other towns, 
devoted to the proprietary government, and was closely 
connected with all those ties and associations which it 
was the policy of the new government to break up. Great 
was the consternation at St. Mary's at a change which 
brought her certain ruin, and a pathetic appeal was made 
to the Assembly to reconsider their action. Pathos and 
humility were but thrown away on the Lower House, 
the coarse and almost brutal scorn of whose reply shows 
the acrimony of the dominant party. Remonstance and 
appeal were all in vain. The ancient city was stripped of 
her privileges, of everything that gave her life, and she 
was left to waste and perish from the earth. Her popu- 
lation departed, her houses fell to ruins, and nothing is 
now left of her but a name and a memory." 

It was in the year 1694, that the seat of government was 
moved from St. Mary's to Annapolis. 

Father Andrew White was born in London, it is said, 
in the year 1579. Little is known of his early years, but 
we may well suppose that they were passed in the prac- 
tice of virtue and in severe application to study. The 
great evangelist of America comes before us at once in 
history as a priest crowned with a halo of science and 
piety. We hear of him as a newly-anointed priest at 
Douay in 1605, and the following year we see him cast 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 29 

into prison for the faith, and thence, with forty-six other 
clergymen, driyen into perpetual banishment. He then 
retired to Catholic Spain and became professor in one of 
the English or Irish Colleges there. Soon after this he 
resolved to join the sons of St. Ignatius, and for that pur- 
pose left Spain and proceeded to Louvain. Of Father 
White's novice-home we wrote the following brief sketch, 
a few years ago, for the Woodstock Letters : 

Near the Cliateaii Cesar, or Castrum Caesaris, Lou- 
vain, high up on Mont-Cesar, stand three or four private 
dwellings and a ruined stable. Few, even among the 
students of Louvam, know that these dwellings occupy 
the site of the old English Jesuit Novitiate, and that the 
stable itself was once a part of that hallowed house. When 
the English Fathers of the Society of Jesus were driven 
from their own country, in 1607, they rented a house on 
Mont-Cesar, and used it for a novitiate. This novitiate 
was opened by Father Parsons, in the same year, with six 
priests, two scholastics, and five lay-brothers. God gave 
this novice-home a singular and wonderful benediction — 
he gave it an apostle and a martyr. While Hugh O'Neill, 
Prince of Ulster, occupied the Chateau Cesar, near him, 
in the humble Jesuit novitiate, Andrew White, the future 
Apostle of Maryland, and Thomas Garnett, a future mar- 
tyr, were passing their days of probation in prayer, pen- 
ance and manual labors. As The O'Neill spent several 
months on Mont-Cesar, and knowing him to be the great 
Catholic hero of his time, we may take it for granted that 
he often visited the exiled English priests, and that he 
often saw the novices. White and Garnett. How proud 
the old chieftain would have felt had the future destiny of 
these two young men been revealed to him ! 



30 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Father White began his novitiate on the first day of 
February, 1607. Besides Garnett, Father White had for 
a fellow-novice the illustrious Father Henry More, the 
historian of the English Province and the great grandson 
of the martyred Chancellor, Sir Thomas More. Among 
confessors for the faith, among the descendants, the near 
relatives of martyrs, the future Apostle of Maryland laid 
the foundation of his religious perfection and caught the 
flame that burned in his great heart as he traversed the 
forests or sailed the rivers of the New World. 

Father More faithfully described White's novice-home 
as seated on high ground, commanding the whole city; 
below was a walled garden, and on the slopes of the hill 
pleasant walks among the vines, which were ranged in 
terraces, and the whole, though within the city walls, as 
quiet and calm as befitted a house of prayer. 

Father White, say the Records of the English 
Province, passed through the usual probationary exer- 
cises of the noviceship with such satisfaction to his su- 
periors that, at the end of two years, after taking first or 
simple vows of religion, he was at once sent back to the 
labors and dangers of the English Mission. Nor did he 
disappoint the expectations formed of him, refusing fiis 
labors to none, whether instructing Protestants in the 
tenets of the Catholic faith, confirming Catholics in vir- 
tue, or administering the sacraments, until he was called 
by obedience into Spain, to labor in the colleges of the 
English Province there. He was a man of transcendent 
talents, and filled the offices of prefect of studies, profes- 
sor of Sacred Scriptures, dogmatic theology, and He- 
brew, both at Valladolid and Seville, with great applause, 
and, as appears by the Catalogues of the English Prov- 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 3 1 

, ince, had also filled other various responsible offices 
of his Order, such as superior, minister, consultor, and 
confessor. The editor of the Maryland Historical So- 
ciety's pamphlet adds that he was afterwards professor of 
divinity, first at Douay and then at Liege. The " Sum- 
mary '* of the deceased of the Province for the year 1656, 
says of the Father that in these employments he gave 
proof no less of his talents than of his virtues, excelling, 
we may truly say, in both. 

Inflamed with ardent zeal for the salvation of souls, 
he again petitioned for, and obtained leave to be sent 
back to the English Mission, where, by his anxious care 
in the duties of a missionary, he was preparing himself 
for a glorious death, so often the lot of the priest in those 
cruel days of exterminating persecution ; when it pleased 
God to call him to a more fruitful application of his labors 
among the Gentiles, and to choose him as the first apostle 
to carry the Gospel to the New World. 

Justly has Father White been styled the Apostle of 
Maryland. His evangelical career in that State, as well 
among the white settlers as among the different Indian 
tribes, may be pointed to by all Catholics as another 
proof of the divine commission left to their church to 
teach all nations, as a proof that the spirit that helped 
and guided the apostles in their wondrous works has 
ever lovingly abided with her missionaries. Father 

-White had all the grand characteristics of an apostle, of 
a man sent of God. He was a teacher endowed with vast 
learning, a priest who had attained a high degree of 
sanctity. He was undaunted in the midst of labors, 
pains, dangers, trials and persecutions. At least twice he 
was seized by cruel bigots and cast into prison on account 



32 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

of his devotion to our holy religion. His continual 
austerities, even while confined in a miserable dungeon, 
at Newgate, won the admiration and pity of his jailors. 
His burning zeal knew no bounds, his living, practical 
charity had no limits. In order to save men, in order to 
win souls to Jesus Christ, he made himself all to all. He 
labored among the settlers on the banks of the Potomac 
and Patuxent Rivers, and down by the Chesapeake Bay, 
with the same zeal, and fidelity, and joy with which he 
taught at Seville and Valladolid, or worked for the greater 
glory of God among the proscribed Catholics who sought 
his spiritual aid even under the grim shadow of Lon- 
don's black tower. As a fellow-novice of Father Thomas 
Garnett, martyred at Tyburn ; as a spiritual child of the 
holy Father Robert Parsons, who knew so many dun- 
geons for Christ's love ; as a confessor of the faith him- 
self, he called with power and efficacy upon the Pilgrims 
assembled in their wigwam chapel to love God above all 
things, and to cling with reverence and affection to the 
ancient and holy creed of England. But more especially 
did this truly great and pious priest give undeniable 
proofs of the apostolic fire that animated him when he 
treated with the Indians. 

The red men were his favorite children, his chosen peo- 
ple. The salvation of these he desired with all the love 
and ardor of his large, apostolic heart. No labors were 
too heavy when endured for their sakes, no pains were 
too acute when suffered in trying to lead them from dark- 
ness to light, from error to truth, from Satan to God. He 
sought them in their villages and on their hunts, in the 
depths of their forests, and far out on the stormy waters. 
He learned their difficult language that he might all the 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 33 

better enter into their feelings, learn their errors and their 
wants, and lead them into the one true fold. He lost no 
opportunity, no occasion, of instructing them in the prin- 
cipal dogmas of faith, of preaching to them the Gospel 
of Peace. 

The Annual Letters of the English Province for the 
year 1656, in recording the death of Father White, state 
him to have been a man of many extraordinary virtues, 
and relate that in his last illness he was for a long time 
so excessively weak that his death was daily expected, 
he kept often repeating : My hour is not yet come, nor 
is St. John the Evangelist's day. This answer he would 
always give to those who advised him to fortify his de- 
parting soul with the last sacraments of the church. At 
length, on the very feast of the '' beloved disciple," at his 
morning's meditation he heard these words interiorily 
spoken to him : To-day thou shalt be with me. He 
therefore bade those attending him to call a priest, 
adding that he must come quickly, for, should there be 
the least delay, he would be dead before he could receive 
the last rites. Death, which quickly followed, proved 
his words true, although w^hen they were spoken there 
was no more sign of approaching death than there had 
been for a fortnight before. Father White spent the last 
years of his life in the family of a Catholic nobleman, 
and died on December 27th, 1656, in his seventy-ninth 
year. 

The gaoler of Newgate, in which Father White was 
confined awaiting his trial and probable capital convic- 
tion, noticing the rigorous fasts of the holy priest, said 
one day to him : " If you treat your poor old body so 
badly, you will not be strong enough to be taken to be 



34 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

hanged at Tyburn." The Father repHed: ''It is this 
very fasting which gives me strength enough to bear all 
for the sake of Christ." 

Father Nathaniel Southwell gives us the following 
eulogium of Father White: *' He was a man no less re- 
markable for sanctity than for learning ; he would fre- 
quently take only bread and water for his refection, and 
defer even that meagre fare until evening. So great was 
his humility that he voluntarily sought out occasion for 
self-abjection. So patient was he under bodily sufferings 
that although laboring under a long and most trouble- 
some infirmity, yet was he never heard to utter a single 
complaint, but, as far as was permitted him, he would 
carry himself as one in good health, and in this point he 
w^as an admirable counterfeiter. Finally, in all matters 
of business whatever, in which he was engaged, there 
seemed to be a certain air of sanctity inspired, so that 
grave men were not wanting who declared that if they 
had ever seen a living saint, most assuredly Father An- 
drew White was the man." 

The Annual Letter for 1639 gives the following inter- 
esting details : There are in this mission four priests and 
one coadjutor. All are working in places far distant, with 
the hope, no doubt, of thus obtaining earlier acquaint- 
ance with the native language and propogating more 
widely the holy faith of the Gospel. Father John 
Brock, the Superior, with a coadjutor brother, remains in 
the plantation. Metapawnien, which was given us by 
Maquacomen, the King of Patuxent, is a kind of store 
house for this mission, whence most of our bodily 
supplies are obtained. Father Philip Fisher lives 
in the principal town of the colony, to which the 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 35 

name of St. Mary's has been given. Father John 
Gravenor, lives in Kent Island, sixty miles distant. 
Father Andrew White is at the still further distance of 
one hundred and twenty miles, at Kittamaquindi, the 
metropolis of Pascatoe, having lived since the month of 
June, 1639, in the palace with the King himself whom 
they call Tayac. 

The cause of the Father's going thither is as follows : 
We had bestowed much time and labor in the work of 
the conversion of the King of Patuxent, an event antici- 
pated by us all, both from our recollections of kind- 
nesses received — for he had given to the Society a farm, 
as has been said — and because he was considered very 
powerful among the barbarians, on account of his rep- 
utation for wisdom and influence. Some of his people 
had become Catholics, and he appeared himself abund- 
antly instructed in the first principles of the faith, when, 
lo ! — in the inscrutable judgments of God — the unhappy 
man at first procrastinated, then by degrees grew indif- 
ferent, and at length openly broke off altogether from 
the work he had commenced. Nor this only ; but he 
also gave indications of an hostility against the whole 
colony not to be misunderstood. Whereupon the 
Governor, after prudent inquiries, determined, by the 
advice of his council, that the Father should be recalled 
from his position with the King, lest the barbarian might 
give sudden proof of his perfidy and cruelty against him ; 
and also, lest this hostage, as it were, being left in the 
King's power, the Governor himself might find it diffi- 
cult to revenge injuries, should the Patuxent at any time 
declare himself an open enemy. 

The conversion of Maquacomen being despaired of. 



36 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Father Andrew betook himself to the Tayac of Pisca- 
toway, who treated him very kindly at the first inter- 
view, and became so attached to him that he afterwards 
always held him in the greatest love and veneration, and 
was unwilling that the Father should use any other hos- 
pitality than that of his palace. Nor was the Queen 
inferior to her husband in benevolence to their guest, for 
with her own hands she was accustomed to prepare 
meat for him and bake bread, and waited upon him with 
equal care and attention. 

Soon after the arrival of Father White the Tayac was 
in danger of death from a serious disease, and, when 
forty conjurors had in vain tried every remedy, the 
Father by permission of the sick man administered as 
medicine a certain powder of known efficacy mixed with 
holy water, taking care to have him bled the day after 
by a youth whom the Father always had with him. 
After that the sick man began daily to grew better, and 
soon after altogether recovered. Upon this he resolved 
to be initiated as soon as possible into the Christian 
faith, and both his wife and his two daughters along 
with him, for as yet he had no male offspring. Father 
White is now diligently engaged in their instruction, 
and they are not slow in receiving the Catholic doctrine, 
for through the light of heaven vouchsafed to them, they 
have long since found out the errors of their former life. 
The King has exchanged the skins, with which he was 
before clothed, for a garment after the European fashion, 
and he makes some little endeavor to learn our 
language. 

The Tayac is greatly delighted with spiritual con- 
versation, and seems to esteem earthly wealth as nothing 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 37 

in comparison with heavenly ; as he told the Governor, 
to whom he was on a visit with Father White while he 
was under instruction, and who was explaining to him 
what great advantages could be enjoyed from the 
English by a mutual exchange of wares. '* Verily," he 
said, " I consider all these things trifling when compared 
with this one advantage — that through these mission- 
aries I have arrived at the knowledge of the only true 
God, than which there is nothing greater to me, nothing 
which ought to be greater." Not long since, when he 
held a convention of other rulers, in a crowded assembly 
of the chiefs and a circle of common people. Father White 
and some of the English being present, he publicly 
declared it to be his advice, together with that of his 
wife and children, that, abjuring the superstition of the 
country, they should all embrace the profession and 
practice of Christianity, for that the only true Deity is 
He Whom the Christians worshipped, nor can the 
immortal soul of man be otherwise saved from eternal 
death ; stones and herbs, to which through blindness of 
mind he and they had hitherto given Divine honors, 
being the humblest things created by Almighty God for 
the use and relief of human life. Having said this, he 
cast from him a stone which he held in his hand, and 
spurned it with his foot. .A murmur of applause from 
the people sufficiently indicated that they did not hear 
these things with unfavorable ears. Thus there is the 
strongest hope, that, when the family of the King is 
purified by baptism, the conversion of the whole country 
will speedily follow. In the meanwhile we heartily 
thank God for the present happy prospect, and are 
especially encouraged when we daily behold those idols 



38 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

to be the contempt of the natives which were lately 
reckoned in the number of their deities. 

To the hope of the Indian harvest are to be added also 
no mean fruits reaped from the colony and its inhabitants, 
to whorft, on the principal festival days of the year, 
sermons are preached, and catechetical instructions on 
Sundays. Our labors are rewarded, for not only Cath- 
olics come in crowds, but also many heretics, and this 
year, twelve in all renouncing their former errors, have 
been reconciled to God and the Church. Our Fathers 
are daily occupied in their Divine work, and dispense 
the sacraments to those who come, as often as circum- 
stances demand. In fine, to those in health, to the sick, 
to the afflicted and the dying, we strive to be in read- 
iness to afford counsel, relief, and assistance of every 
kind. 

From the Annual Letter for 1640 we learn the follow- 
ing facts : In the mission this year were four priests 
and one coadjutor. We stated in our last letters what 
hope we had conceived of converting the Tayac, or the 
King of Pascatoe. In the meantime, such is the good- 
ness of God, the result has not disappointed our expec- 
tation, for he has become a Catholic, some others also 
being brought over with him, and on July 5th, 1640, when 
he was sufficiently instructed in the mysteries of the faith, 
he was solemnly baptized in a little chapel, which, after 
the manner of the Indians, he had erected out of bark 
for that purpose and for Divine worship. At the same 
time the Queen, and her infant, and others of the princi- 
pal men whom he especially admitted to his councils, to- 
gether with his little son, were regenerated in the bap- 
tismal font. To the King, who was called Chitomacheu 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 39 

before, was given the name of Charles ; to his wife that 
of Mary. The others, on receiving the Christian faith, 
had Christian names allotted to them. The Governor, 
together with his Secretary, and many others, was present 
at the ceremony, nor was anything omitted which could 
help the display and which our means could supply. 

In the afternoon the King and Queen were united in 
matrimony after the Christian rite ; then the great cross 
was erected, in carrying which to its destined place the 
King, the Governor, Secretary, and others, lent their 
shoulders and hands ; two of us in the meantime — Fathers 
White and Gravenor — chanted before them the Litany of 
Loreto in honor of the Blessed Virgin. And not long 
after, the same two Fathers, White and Gravenor, had to 
bear by no light crosses of their own ; for Father White, 
in performing the ceremonies of baptism, which were 
somewhat long, had contracted fever from which he only 
partially recovered, then suffered a relapse, and was ill 
during the whole winter. Father Gravenor so completely 
lost the use of his feet as to be unable to stand ; after 
a little he too got better, though an abscess was afterwards 
formed, which carried him off in the space of a few days, 
upon November 5th, 1640. (He died at St. Mary's City, 
and was buried in the graveyard there.) 

A famine about this time prevailed among the Indians, 
owing to the great drought of the past summer ; and 
that we might not appear to neglect the bodies of those 
for the care of whose souls we had made so long a voy- 
age, though corn was sold at a great price, we considered 
it necessary to relieve them to the utmost of our power. 
Amidst these cares, and busied also in settling the affairs 
of the mission, we passed the greater part of the winter. 



40 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

On February 15th we came to Pascatoe, joyfully- 
greeted by the inhabitants, who indeed seemed well in- 
clined to receive the Christian faith. So that not long 
after the King brought his daughter, seven years old, 
whom he loved with great affection, to be educated among 
the English at St. Mary's, and to be washed in the sacred 
font of baptism ; she is beginning to understand the 
Christian mysteries. One of his counsellors also, of whom 
we have spoken before, desiring that the mercies of God 
which he had experienced in his own case should be 
brought to his people, earnestly prays that his wife and 
children may be led to seek the waters of salvation, which 
most pious desire, after suitable instruction, will, we hope, 
by the favor of God, be gratified. 

Another King, chief of the Anacostans, whose territory 
is not far distant, is anxious to come and live as one of 
us ; and from this it is evident that a rich harvest awaits 
us, on which we may advantageously bestow our labor, 
though it is to be feared that there will not be laborers 
sufficient for gathering in the abundant fruits. There 
are other villages lying near, which, I doubt not, would 
run promptly and joyfully to the light of the Gospel truth, 
if there was any one to impart to them the word of eter- 
nal life. It is not, however, right for us to be too anxious 
about others, lest we may seem to abandon prematurely 
our present tender flock ; nor need those -who are sent 
out to assist us fear lest the means of life be wanting, for 
He who clothes the lilies and feeds the fowls of the air, 
will not leave those who are laboring to extend His king- 
dom destitute of necessary sustenance. 

Father Andrew suffered no little inconvenience from a 
hard-hearted and troublesome captain of New England, 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 4 1 

whom he had engaged to convey him and his effects, and 
at whose hands he was, a little while after, in great dan- 
ger of being either cast into the sea, or carried with all 
his goods to New England, a place full of Puritan Cal- 
vinists. Silently committing the affair to God, he at 
length safely reached Potomac (commonly pronounced 
Patemeak). Having cast anchor in this harbor, th^ ship 
became so fast bound by a great quantity of ice that it 
could not be moved for the space of seventeen days. 
Walking on the ice, as though it were land, the Father 
departed for the town, and when the ice was broken up, 
the ship, driven and jammed by the force of its moving 
fragments, was sunk, but the cargo was in a great mea- 
sure recovered. 

By this misfortune. Father White was detained in his 
visits as long as seven weeks, for he found it necessary 
to procure another ship from St. Mary's. But the spiritual 
gain of souls readily compensated for his delay, since the 
ruler of the little yillage, with the principal men amongst 
its inhabitants, was, during that time added to the Church, 
and received the faith of Christ through baptism. Be- 
sides these persons, one was converted along with many 
of his friends ; a third brought his wife, his son, and a 
friend ; and a fourth, in like manner, came together with 
another of no ignoble standing among his people. 
Strengthened by their example, the people are prepared 
to receive the faith whenever we shall have leisure to in- 
struct them. 

Not long after a young empress (as they call her at 
Pascataway) was baptized in the town of St. Mary's, and 
is now being educated there, having already become a 
proficient in the English language. Almost at the same 



42 



OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 



time the town named Portobacco, to a great extent re- 
ceived the faith along with baptism. This town, from its 
situation on the river Pamac (the inhabitants call it Pa- 
make), almost in the centre of the Indians, and the con- 
venience of making excursions from it in all directions, 
we have determined to make our residence ; the more so 
because we fear that we may be compelled to abandon 
Pascataway, on account of its proximity to the Susque- 
hannoes, which nation is the most hostile to the Chris- 
tians. 

An attack having been recently made on a settlement 
of ours, they slew the men whom we had there, and car- 
ried away our goods, to our great loss. 




ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 43 



CHAPTER II. 



Father White was ably assisted in all his early under- 
takings by Father John Altham, vere Gravenor, and 
Father Timothy Hays, alias Hanmer. 

Father Altham was a native of Warwickshire, England, 
and was born in the year 1589. He was enrolled among 
the sons of St. Ignatius in 1623. Before coming to 
Maryland he zealously served the missions in the Devon 
and London Districts. 

Father Hays was born in Dorsetshire, in England, in 
1584. Being already raised to the dignity of the priest- 
hood, he entered a Jesuit Novitiate in 161 7. For a long 
time he was engaged in missionary life in London, where 
he was exposed to a thousand daily dangers. 

From the ''Annual Letters" we learn many interesting 
details concerning the labors of the missionaries, and 
their mode of life. Thus we learn, that they made many 
excursions, not only by land, but also by water. One of 
the Fathers, writing in 1640 says : We have to content 
ourselves with missionary excursions, of which we have 
made many this year by ascending the river they call 
Patuxent, where some fruit has been gained in the con- 
version of the young Queen of the town, that takes its 
name from the river there, and her mother; also the 
young Queen of Portobacco; the wife and two sons of 
Tayac the Great, as they call him, who died last year, and 



44 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

of one hundred and thirty others besides. The following 
is our manner of making these excursions. The Father 
himself, his interperter, and a servant, set off in a pinnace 
or galley — two are obliged to propel the boat with oars, 
when the wind fails or is adverse ; the third steers. We 
take with us a supply of bread, butter, cheese, corn cut 
and dried before it is ripe, beans and a little flour ; in 
another chest we carry bottles, one of which contains 
wine for the altar, in six others is blessed water for the 
purpose of Baptism ; a box holds the. sacred utensils, and 
we have a table as an altar for saying Mass. A third 
chest is full of trifles, which we give to the Indians to 
gain their goodwill — such as little bells, combs, fishing- 
hooks, needles, thread and other things similar. We 
have a little tent also for camping in the open air, as we 
frequently do; and we use a larger one when the weather 
is stormy and wet. The servants carry other things 
which are necessary for hunting, and for cooking pur- 
poses. 

In our excursions we endeavor, as much as we can, 
to reach some English house or Indian village, failing 
in this we land, the Father moors the boat fast to the 
shore, then collects wood and makes a fire, while the two 
others, meantime go off hunting. If, unfortunately, no 
game can be found, we refresh ourselves with the provis- 
ions we have brought, and lie down by the fire to take 
our rest. When rain threatens we erect our hut and 
spread a large mat over it ; nor, praise be to God, do we 
enjoy this humble fare and hard couch with less content 
than if we had the more luxurious provisions of Europe. 
To comfort us God gives us a foretaste of what He will one 
day grant to those who labor faithfully in this life, and 



ifS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 45 

mitigates all our hardships by imparting a spirit of cheer- 
fulness, for His Divine Majesty appears to be present 
with us in an extraordinary manner. 

The Annual Letters also tell us how the Fathers 
preached in the forests to the Indians, how they baptized 
Princes and Princesses, and united in the holy bonds of 
matrimony red Kings and Queens. During epidemics 
and famines the missionaries showed in an especial man- 
ner to the unhappy Indians the beauty of Christian, 
white-robed charity, and the fruits of apostolic zeal. On 
more than one occasion the cross of the missioner was the 
means of w^orking some stupendous miracle that caused 
the red w^arriors to make the woods ring with their 
shouts of '' glory to the wondrous God of the Christians." 

Brother Thomas Gervase rendered important service 
to the 'missionaries, and though only engaged in waiting 
on the Fathers, and attending as far as he could under 
the circumstances to their temporal wants, fully shared 
in the merit of their holy labors, and must ever partici- 
pate in the glory of their undertakings. This devoted 
man was born in Derbyshire, England, in 1590. Thirty- 
four years afterwards he entered the Society of Jesus as 
a Temporal Coadjutor. From Catalogues we learn that, 
in 1625, he was a novice in the London Novitiate, Clerk- 
enwell. It seems that after his vows of religion he still 
remained in the same house, for four years later on we 
find him still in the same place. In 1633 he is mentioned 
as being employed in humble and useful duties in the 
Lancashire District. '' It is very probable," says the 
Collectanea^ '' that he is identical with Thomas Latham, 
the housekeeper at Clerkenwell, mentioned in the report 
of the discovery of that Residence by the Pursuivants of 



46 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

the Privy Council in 1628, and committed with the rest 
to prison." Brother Gervase died of the yellow-fever, in 
the August or September of 1637. The Annual Let- 
ter for that year says, that "after enduring severe toils 
for the space of five years with the greatest patience, 
humility and ardent love, he was seized by the disease 
prevalent at the time, and happily exchanged this wretched 
life for that which is eternal." 

Father Timothy Hays returned to England about the 
year 1636. That year two other missionaries arrived in 
Maryland, [Fathers John Rogers, alias Bampfield, and 
John Wood. This last-named Father did not remain 
many months in the Maryland Mission, perhaps on ac- 
count of ill-health. 

Father Rogers was the son of an Esquire, and was 
born at Feltham, near Frome, County Wilts, in England, 
about the year 1584. Feltham was his father's seat. He 
was brought up as a Protestant, but having been taken to 
the Douay College by Father Bray of the Society, he 
was converted to the true Faith. He entered the English 
College, at Rome, in 1604. The following extract is 
taken from the diary of that College: '' 1604. John 
Rogers, of Somerset, near the town of Frome, aged 
twenty, not yet confirmed, came from Douay with Wil- 
liam Worthington and Dingley (Morgan). On account 
of his weak health, his admission to the College was de- 
ferred until the beginning of the following year, when he 
was admitted among the alumni on January i, 1605, and 
took the usual College oaths on the loth of August fol- 
lowing. Having completed his philosophy and theology, 
he left the College April 21, 161 1, and entered the So- 
ciety. On entering the College he made the following 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES: 47 

statement : ' My name. is John Rogers. I am twenty 
years of age, and was born in a village called Feltham, 
the property of my father, near the town of Frome, in 
Somersetshire. I received the rudiments of education in 
various places, but mostly in a town in Wiltshire, called 
Heytesbury, where' I studied humanities for seven years. 
Thence, at my father's wish, I went to Oxford, where I 
lived half a year in Oriel College. After this I remained 
at home idle for nearly two years, when a soldier named 
.Richard Diar, of the King's body-guard, came to my 
father's house, and asked him if he was willing that I 
should enter the service of the son of Lord Harrington, 
who was Lord-in-Waiting to the Prince. The soldier, 
having heard my father's wishes, turning to me asked if 
I was agreeable. 'On one special condition,' I said 
(meaning that I should preserve my religion). ' Thou 
wilt be pure in religion,' he replied (thinking I favored 
Puritanism). ' I refused his offer. At length my uncle. 
Lord Stourton, asked my father what he could do for 
me, and proposed my entering the service of his wife, 
the Lady Stourton. To this my father assented and 
committed me to her charge ; and when I had spent a 
year there, by chance I met a very aged priest, named 
Father Bray, who had lived ten years at Douay, and by 
whose means I was made a Catholic, and I then crossed 
over, not without difficulty, to Douay. My father is an 
Esquire, living upon his own estate ; I have only one 
brother and sister, and myself, the eldest. I have many 
relatives, some of them Catholics. My father is still a 
schismatic, and I, myself, was always so until my con- 
version by the above-named aged priest.' " 

In 1624 Father Rogers was a missioner in the College 



48 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

of St. Thomas of Canterbury. In 1655 he was at Watten, 
then being seventy-two years of age, having spent forty- 
four in the Society and thirty-four upon the mission. He 
died at St. Omer's College, on August 7th, 1657. ' 

The summary of the deceased members of the English 
Province for 1657, thus notices this Father: *' Father 
John Rogers, a learned man, and a very sharp defender 
of our Francis Suarez. Being translated to the novitiate 
of Watten in his declining years, he spent much time in 
prayer, either in his private chamber or else before the 
Blessed Sacrament in the Church. He was visiting the' 
College of St. Omer by way of recreation, and appeared 
in perfect health, but was found in the morning dead, yet 
modestly composed in bed, on the 7th of this month of 
September.'' Father Rogers was, with other Jesuit 
Fathers, sent into banishment in 16 18, under the name 
of John Bampfield. According to Father Edmund Coffin, 
Father Rogers publicly defended theses of philosophy 
(metaphysics) with Father John Port (Layton) in Rome. 
In Brother Foley's sketch of the College of St. Thomas, 
of Canterbury, we read : " Besides Father Baldwin, eleven 
of the English Fathers of the Society passed under the 
charge of the good Count Gondomar into exile : Ralph 
Bickley, Richard Bartlet, John Bampfield {vere John 
Rogers), Alexander Fairclough, John Falconer, Henry 
Hawkins, John Sweetman, Francis Wallis, Laurence 
Worthington, Francis Young and William York. Most 
of these returned to England to resume their arduous 
labors, braving alike the dangers of recapture and of cer- 
tain death if caught." 

From some cause or other Father Rogers was not al- 
lowed to spend his life in working on the Maryland Mis- 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 49 

sion. About 1638 he was recalled to England. One year 
or two before his return, however, the Mission was in- 
creased by the arrival of two new Jesuits, Father Thomas 
Copley, alias Philip Fisher, and Father John Knowles. 

Father Knowles was a native of Staffordshire, and was 
born in 1607. He entered the Society at the age of sev- 
enteen. He did not last much more than six weeks in 
the Mission. The Annual Letters say of him that though 
young he " possessed remarkable qualities of mind, which 
gave great promise for the future. He had scarcely spent 
two months in this Mission, when, to the great grief of 
all of us, he was carried off by the sickness so general 
in the colony." The Letters add that " none of the three 
remaining priests have entirely escaped, yet we have not 
ceased to labor to the best of our ability among the 
neighboring people." 

In the Colonial records of Maryland we find frequent 
allusions made to Thomas Copley, Esq. That this gen- 
tleman was held in high esteem in Lord Baltimore's new 
colony, no one of the numerous writers who incidentally 
refer to him ever seems to doubt. He was more than 
once invited to take a place at the council-board of the 
legislators of Maryland. In January, 1637, he was sum- 
moned to the '' General Assembly held at St. Marie's 
City," but '' Robert Clerke, gent, appeared for him, and 
excused his absence by reason of sickness." From stray 
notes found in the '' Annals of Annapolis " we learn that 
he was on intimate terms of friendship with some of the 
*'two hundred gentlemen adventurers" who, in 1633, 
sailed from England as passengers of the Dove and Ark, 
Yet, strange to say, up to a recent date his character and 
profession were involved in much mystery. Most of our 



50 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Catholic authors rightly surmised, from his association 
with Father White, that he must have been a Jesuit mis- 
sionary. But they could give very little more information 
concerning him. Not a few Protestant historians boldly 
asserted that he was an accomplished agent in the secret 
service of the sons of Loyola. Sebastian F. Streeter, how- 
ever, who had access to some reliable documents, says : 
** Notwithstanding his title of ' Esquire,' Mr. Copley was 
a Jesuit priest." What rendered Copley still more mys- 
terious, was the fact, that the Maryland Jesuits, in their 
reports, or Annual Letters, never even once made men- 
tion of him. With no small degree of satisfaction, we 
shall now trace as far as we can, the career of one who 
has long puzzled historians, and much of whose history 
has up to these times, been hidden under the assumed 
name of Philip Fisher. 

Father Thomas Copley was born at Madrid, in Spain, 
about the year 1594. His grandfather. Lord Thomas 
Copley, Baron of Welles, was son of Sir Roger Copley, 
of Gatton, in Surrey, and of Elizabeth Shelley, sister to 
Sir William Shelley, the last English Lord Prior of St. 
John of Jerusalem. Lord Thomas had to go into exile 
on account of his steadfastness in the faith, and had 
much to suffer from the enemies of the old religion. He 
had to sustain great losses, though he had married one 
of Sir John Lutterel's daughters — an heir of blood royal. 
On his mother's side, Father Copley had also a distin- 
guished ancestry. His mother, Margaret Prideaux, was 
the granddaughter of Margaret Giggs, ''a gentleman's 
daughter of Norfolk," who appears by Margaret Roper's 
side in Holbein's famous picture of Sir Thomas More's 
family. The great Chancellor thus referred to Margaret 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. $1 

Giggs in his last letter : *' I send now my good daughter 
Clement, her algorism-stone, and send her and my god- 
son, and all her's, God's blessing and mine." Margaret 
Giggs, or as she was known after marriage, Mrs. Clement, 
was a heroic Christian woman. While the Charterhouse 
monks were in prison, having bought over the gaoler, 
she daily visited them in their cells. To do this the 
more securely, she disguised herself as a milk-maid, and 
carried on her head a basket, which contained meat for 
the poor captives. Suspicion being aroused, and the 
gaoler growing afraid of a fatal discovery, she was at 
length refused permission to enter the prison. But by 
her importunity and presents, she obtained the gaoler's 
consent to ascend the roof, and through it, to give some 
little help to the holy confessors who were bound hand 
and foot to posts. Mrs. Clement, on account of the 
growing persecutions in England, retired to the Low 
Countries— forsaking, for love of conscience, country, 
living and rents. She died at Mechlin, and her body 
was laid to rest behind the main altar of St. Rumold's 
Cathedral. Several of her children survived her. One 
of her daughters, Winifred, married Sir William Rastall, 
nephew and biographer of Sir Thomas More. Another 
daughter was the holy and gifted Mother Clement, 
Prioress of the Augustinian Nuns of St. Ursula, Louvain. 
Helen, a third daughter, married Thomas Prideaux, of 
Devonshire. Of this couple was born Magdalen, an only 
daughter. This young lady passed a great pai;t of her 
early life in the peaceful cloister of St. Ursula, Louvain, 
under the protection and guidance of some of England's 
noblest daughters. " She had education to many rare 
qualities, for she was a fine musician, both in song and 






52 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

instruments, had the Latin tongue perfect, also poetry, 
and was skillful in the art of painting ; a woman, indeed, 
wise, of good judgment, and pious in godly matters." This 
accomplished woman was destined to be the mother of 
the subject of this sketch. 

William Copley, the future husband of Magdalen 
Prideaux, '* coming into England " after the death of 
Lord Thomas, his father, '' to enjoy his inheritance, being 
not twenty-one years of age, and finding that to pass the 
Court of Wards, he must take the oath of supremacy, 
not having, as yet, experience how to escape that danger 
as others do, determined rather than commit such an of- 
fence against Almighty God, to venture the loss of all 
his land for his lifetime, so that he might enjoy freedom 
of his conscience. Wherefore, behold in this resolution 
this constant youth, most loyal to God, letteth forth all 
his leases for small rents, taking fines in the place, so 
maketh a good sum of money, and over the sea he comes 
with one trusty servant, and goeth into Spain, where God 
ordained that he got a pension in respect that his father's 
worthiness had been well known to strangers." While 
in Spain, William Copley met Magdalen Prideaux, and 
took her as his wife. 

*' In the meantime," says St. Monica's Chronicle, " the 
Queen seized upon William Copley's living, and gave it 
away to a cousin-german of his that lived in her Courr, 
named Sir William Lane, so that for seventeen years the 
said Wiiliam Copley enjoyed not one penny of his estate, 
but having four children by his marriage, two daughters 
and two sons, he maintained them only by his pension. 
At the coming of the Infanta with Albert, the Archduke 
of Austria, to be princes of these Low Countries, he got 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 53 

his pension transferred into these quarters, for to be 
nearer home, and so came to Hve in these Low Coun- 
tries." 

When Thomas Copley had reached his ninth year, he 
went with his parents to reside at the ancestral seat at 
Gatton. Of his boyhood years in England I find noth- 
ing recorded. It is almost certain, however, that he 
received his early education, both secular and religious, 
from some proscribed priest, who acted as chaplain in 
his paternal home. The influence of his own family 
must have, at an early hour, turned his thoughts toward 
spiritual things, while the story of all that his heroic pro- 
genitors had endured for the cause of the ancient religion 
of England, must have aroused his enthusiasm, and kin- 
dled in his young soul the fire of high and generous 
resolves. The stern laws against Catholic education in 
England forced him to proceed to the Continent to pur- 
sue his higher studies. As his fathers had gone into 
exile for the sake of their religion, he now went forth into 
a strange land for the love of knowledge. In i6i i, we 
find him among the students of philosophy at the famous 
University of Louvain. About one year previous, his 
two sisters, Mary and Helen, had entered St. Monica's 
convent in the classic city by the Dyle. These were ac- 
complished and brave girls — worthy descendants of 
Margaret Giggs. On their way through Southwark 
they were examined by a Justice of the Peace, and boldly 
professed their faith, and refused to go to a Protestant 
church, " because they would not be dissemblers ; to be 
in their minds of one religion, and make a show of 
another." While young Copley pursued his philoso- 
phical studies under some of the most distinguished pro- 



54 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

fessors of Europe, then at Louvain, we may feel certain 
that he did not fail to practice those virtues which ren- 
der a soul pleasing to its Maker. Perhaps, even then 
he envied the lot of those brave missionaries, who faced 
the axe and block in the heart of London. We cannot 
think that he read of the fate of his kinsman, the holy 
and gifted, and gentle Robert Southwell, without a strong 
feeling of emulation. At all events, a time came, when 
he was in the flush and pride of young manhood, when 
he heard an interior voice that called him away from the 
vanities of life, that called him to take up his cros§ and 
walk in the footprints of his Master. Did he pause, or 
waver, or grow faint-hearted as many a young man has 
done when called to a life of penance, mortification and 
trials ? Did he look with terror on the death that, per- 
haps, awaited him ? No, the blood of confessors of the 
faith, the blood of martyrs ran through his veins, and 
filled his heart. With a light step and beaming eye, he 
climbed up the stony stairs that led to St. John's 
Novitiate, on Mont-Cesar, Louvain, and asked to be 
enrolled among the sons of St. Ignatius, who were there 
preparing themselves in prayer and mortification for the 
death mission in England. 

When the English Jesuits were driven from their own 
country, in 1607, they rented a house on Mont- Cesar, 
Louvain, and used it as a Novitiate. This Novitiate was 
opened by the illustrious Father Parsons, in the same 
year, with six priests, two scholastics, and five lay-broth- 
ers. Already one of its novices, Father Thomas Garnett, 
had shed his blood for the faith. It had sheltered, too, 
among its novices, Father Andrew White, the future 
''Apostle of Maryland," and Father Henry More, the his- 



I 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 55 

torian of the English Jesuit Province, and the great 
grandson of Sir Thomas More. To this school of martyrs 
and apostles young Copley begged to be admitted, and 
was received, and welcomed as a worthy son. He had 
Father John Gerard as his novice-master. This holy and 
remarkable priest had had a career of thrilling and roman- 
tic interest. It has been said by a recent writer, that his 
life *' is equal to anything which has been published since 
the days of Defoe.'' His prison-life, his manifold and 
skillful disguises, his escapes from spies and priest-hunters, 
his stolen visits to the faithful nobility and peasants, form 
a chapter in history which is stranger than any fiction. 

After two years of novitiate, Thomas Copley bound 
himself forever to the service of God by the holy vows 
of religion. Having completed his theological studies at 
Louvain, he was raised to the dignity of the priesthood. 
Though on his entrance into religion, he assumed the 
alias Philip Fisher, we prefer still to call him by his real 
name, and so we note that soon after his ordination Father 
Copley was sent on the English Mission. From Gee's 
strange composition. The Foot out of the Snare ^ we learn 
that, in 1624, he was once again in the land of his fore- 
fathers. '' Father Copley, Junior, one that hath newly 
taken orders and come from beyond the seas," is in Lon- 
don. The life of Father Copley in England, was replete 
with pain and peril. There were men in London, at that 
period, who lived by hunting down priests and religions. 
Heartless spies were found everywhere. They loitered 
around inns, hung around the castles and manors of 
Catholic gentlemen, and ferreted out monks and friars 
from the most secret quarters. It was a hard task for 
Jesuits, even beneath their strangest costumes, and in 



56 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

their most diverse pseudo-avocations, to escape these 
wretches. It was in that same year of 1624, that Father 
Henry Morse, on his arrival in England, in quest of 
souls, was captured and cast into York Castle, in which 
he suffered from severe hunger and cold for the space of 
three years. This same zealous priest was, after some 
years, again taken prisoner and condemned to death. His 
body was divided into quarters, and exposed on four of 
the city gates, and his head affixed on London Bridge. 

Father Copley was in England during the excitement 
and troubles which were created by that bugbear — The 
Clerkenwell Discovery, He may, indeed, have been one 
of those Jesuits who were at that time thrown into prison 
through the machinations of Sir John Cooke. Father 
Thomas Poulton, his kinsman, was one of the priests 
who were committed to the new prison. That Copley's 
life and liberty were in continual danger, is evident to 
every one acquainted with the history of the times of 
which we speak. Doubtless it was owing to great dan- 
gers and troubles that he, through the influence of pow- 
erful friends in Court, obtained from the King the follow- 
ing document : 

*' Whereas^ Thomas Copley^ gentleman^ an alien^ is a re- 
cusant^ and may be subject to be troubled for his religion ; 
and forasmuch as we are well satisfied of the conditions and 
qualities of the said Thomas Copley^ and of his loyalty and 
obedience towards us^ we hereby will and require you^ and 
every one of you^ whom it may concern, to permit the said 
Thomas Copley, freely and quietly, to attend in any place, 
and go about, and follow his occupation without molestation, 
or troubling him by any means whatsoever for matters of 



m 



:: ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 57 

religion^ or the persons or places of those unto whom he 
shall resort, and this shall be your warrant in his behalf. 
Given at our palace of Westminster, the ^th day of Decem- 
ber, in the loth year of our reign (/^Jj)." 

Though Father Copley did not sail for the New Con- 
tinent for three years after the Dove and Ark had entered 
the Potomac, and the *' First Mass " had been offered on 
St. Clement's Island, still it is likely that from the very 
beginning he took a deep interest in the Maryland expe- 
dition. Lord Baltimore had obtained Jesuits, as we have 
already seen, to attend to the inhabitants of his new set- 
tlement, as well as to the red men who dwelt on the . 
Patuxent River, and along the shores of the Chesapeake. 
The superior business capacities of Father Copley must 
have been utilized by Father White and the Catholic 
colonists before they spread out their sails off the beau- 
tiful Isle of Wight. But soon he was called upon to take 
a more active part in the Catholic colony. In 1636, un- 
der the alias of Philip Fisher, he was appointed Superior 
of the Maryland Mission. On arriving in the new field 
of his labor, he took up his residence at St. Mary's City, 
the ancient capital of Maryland. The wigwam of an 
Indian chief, which Father White had converted into a 
chapel, served him as a place of Divine Service. Through . 
the prudence and zeal of Father Copley, great piety, fer- 
vor, and peace soon reigned among the inhabitants of St. 
Mary's. Many of the leading gentlemen there made the 
Spiritual Exercises, according to the method of St. Igna- 
tius, and became exemplary Catholics. '* As for the 
Catholics," says the Annual Letter for 1639, *' ^^e atten- 
dance on the sacraments here is so large, that it is not 



58 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

greater among the faithful in Europe, in proportion to 
their numbers. The most ignorant have been catechized, 
and catechetical lectures have been delivered to the more 
advanced every Sunday ; on feast-days they have been very 
rarely left without a sermon. The sick and the dying, 
who were numerous this year, and dwelt far apart, have 
been assisted in every way, so that not a single person 
has died without the sacraments. We have buried very 
many, but we have baptized a greater number." 

In 1638, Father Ferdinand Poulton, aliases John Brock 
and Morgan, was appointed Superior of the Missions in 
place of his kinsman, Father Copley. The following 
year Copley was again named Superior, and resided at 
St. Mary's City. Father Poulton lived with the Pro- 
prietary, at Mattapany, on the Patuxent ; Father John 
Altham on Kent Island, and Father Andrew White in 
the palace of the Indian king, whom they called Tayac, 
at Piscataway, on the Potomac, almost opposite Mount 
Vernon. 

Father Copley had, to a great extent, to confine his 
labors, at least for some years, to the English settlers at 
the capital of the Province. Most of the Protestants 
who came from England, in 1638, were converted by 
him. '' To Father Philip Fisher," says the Annual Let- 
ter for 1640, '' now residing at St. Mary's, the capital of 
the colony, nothing would have been more agreeable 
than to labor in the Indian harvest, if he had been per- 
mitted by his superiors, who could not, however, dis- 
pense with his services. Yet his goodwill is not left 
without its rewards, for while those among the Indians, 
of whom we have spoken, are being cleansed in the 
waters of baptism, as many are, at the same time, 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 59 

brought back from heretical depravity into the bosom 
of the Church by his active industry." 

In the course of time Father Copley began to make 
excursions through the country for many miles around 
St. Mary's. With true zeal he labored for all the settlers 
and the Catholic Indians, who lived between St. Mary's 
City and Charles County. In wills and other legal doc- 
uments I trace his footsteps in places far apart. At Cal- 
verton Manor, which stood at the head of the Wicomico, 
he was always a welcome guest. The proprietor, the 
Hon. Robert Clerke, loved and esteemed him for his 
many virtues and shining qualities. At Calverton Manor 
the zealous missionary occupied a chamber which was 
known as '' The Priest's Room." At the head of St. 
Clement's Bay he gathered his flock at the hospitable 
home of Luke Gardiner, who owned a farm there of 
about two hundred acres. The distinguished Governor, 
Thomas Green, seems to have had a special regard for 
him. This gentleman gave him several presents for the 
benefit of his Church. Cuthbert Fenwick, one of the 
grand old Catholic founders of St. Mary's, was his inti- 
mate friend, and acted for a long time as his trustee. 
Few names in Maryland history shine with a brighter 
lustre than Cuthbert Fenwick. '' Mr. Fenwick was one," 
says the Protestant author of the Day-Star, " who 
breathed the spirit of Copley, of Cornwallis, and of Cal- 
vert." 

Without having passed through the red fire of perse- 
cution, a glory would be wanting to the early mis- 
sionaries of Maryland, which is never wanting to truly 
apostolic men. Without their having suffered for jus- 
tice' sake, we should miss a halo from their heads. 



6o OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

which is never missing from the heaids of the heroic fol- 
lowers of the Victim of Calvary. Early, indeed, did the 
light and glory of persecution shine round about the 
apostles of Maryland. As the Parliamentary party grew 
strong in England, so did the violence and intolerance 
of the Puritans increase wherever the British flag was 
raised. Even from the very beginning the missionaries 
and the Catholics in general began to suffer in Southern 
Maryland from the bigotry and Pope-hatred of the Pro- 
testants of Virginia and the "saints" of New England, 
who were invited to take a peaceful abode among them. 
Not much more than a decade of years after that mem- 
orable day on which Father White, amid hymns and 
prayers, planted the rude cross on Heron Is'and, '' he 
was seized by some of the English invaders from Vir- 
ginia, the avowed enemies of civil and religious liberty, 
and carried off a prisoner to London." Father Copley 
was taken with Father White and sent back to England 
in irons. Thus was the seal of a true apostleship put 
upon his devotedness and labors. 

" In 1645," say the Annual Letters, ''the civil war was 
raging in all the counties of England with the most 
savage cruelty on the part of the Parliamentary rebel 
soldiers, universally against Catholics. Not a few of the 
Society were seized and committed to prison. It ex- 
tended even to Maryland, where some heretical zealots, 
to curry favor with the Parliament, carried off two of our 
Fathers, viz : Andrew White and Philip Fisher, whose 
family name was ' Cappicius.' Both were brought to 
England and tried, but acquitted on urging that they had 
not entered England of their own accord, but had been 
forcibly and illegally brought thither. Father Fisher 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 6 1 

boldly returned to Maryland, but Father White was 
not allowed to do so on account of his advanced age, 
and he died a few years later in England." 

Where Father Copley spent the interval between 1645 
and 1648, I know not. Certain it is that he did not 
return to America before 1648. Perhaps he worked 
secretly on the mission in England, or probably he re- 
sided in some Jesuit house on the old continent. The 
following letter, addressed to the General of his Order, 
Father Vincent Caraffa, gives an account of his arrival 
in Maryland, and we trust is interesting enough to be 
reproduced in full : 

Our Very Rev. Father in Christ : — At length my 
companion and myself reached Virginia, in the month of 
January, after a tolerable journey of seven weeks ; there 
I left my companion, and availed myself of the opportu- 
nity of proceeding to Maryland, where I arrived in the 
course of February. By the singular providence of 
God, I found my flock collected together, after they had 
been scattered for three long years ; and they were really 
in more flourishing circumstances than those who had 
oppressed and plundered them. With what joy they 
received me, and with what delight I met them, it would 
be impossible to describe, but they received me as an 
Angel of God. I have now been with them a fortnight, 
and am preparing for the painful separation ; for the 
Indians summon me to their aid, and they have been 
ill-treated by the enemy since I \vas torn from them. I 
hardly know what to do, but cannot attend to all. God 
grant that I may do His will for the greater glory of His 
Name. Truly, flowers appear in our land ; may they 



62 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

attain to fruit. A road by land, through the forest, has 
just been opened from Maryland to Virginia ; this will 
make it but a two days' journey, and both countries can 
now be united in one mission. After Easter I shall wait 
on the Governor of Virginia on momentous business, 
may it terminate to the praise and glory of God. My 
companion, I trust, still lies concealed, but I hope will 
soon commence his labors under favorable auspices. 
Next year I trust to have two or three other colleagues, 
with the permission of your Paternity, to whose prayers 
and sacrifices I earnestly commend this mission, myself, 
and all mine. 

Dated from Maryland this ist March in the year of 
God, 1648. 

I remain your Very Rev. Paternity's most unworthy 

servant and son in Christ, 

Philip Fisher. 

Though Father Copley had much to suffer from per- 
secution on the part of the Puritans, and also from pirates 
and desperadoes like Ingle and Claiborne, who disturbed 
the peace of Lord Baltimore's colonists, still it is proba- 
ble that after his return to Maryland he found tranquility 
around him. In 1649 the great Toleration Act was 
passed, and all were free to worship God according to 
the dictates of their conscience. 

Father Copley died in 1653. The manner and place 
of his death are unknown. He sleeps his long sleep, 
perhaps, in the little burial ground at St. Inigoes', but 
his grave is a secret unknown to man, and so remains 
unmarked by cross or stone. Thus mystery in death, 
as well as in life, hangs around this scion of the Copleys. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 63 

Yet not in vain has this devoted priest lived and died. 
His wigwam-chapel is replaced in many an American 
city by magnificent churches and marble cathedrals ; his 
little flock has increased to millions ; the persecutions he 
endured have helped to win freedom of conscience for 
whole peoples ; the flowers that he saw bloom have long 
since attained to fruit — rich and abundant. A grand and 
flourishing Church has sprung up in fields that he wa- 
tered with his tears. Though no one can point out his 
grave in the lonely '' God's Acre " of Southern Mary- 
land, it is a consolation to us to remember that his bones 
rest in a soil over which a white harvest is now ready for 
the sickle. 




64 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 



CHAPTER III. 



In 1638, Father Ferdinand Poulton, alias John Brock, 
arrived in Maryland and became Superior of the Mission. 
He was a pious and devoted priest. 

The Poulton family had several of its members in the 
Society. Father Ferdinand (whose name in confirma- 
tion was John), alias John Brooks, or Brock, alias Mor- 
gan, was the son of Francis Poulton and Ann Morgan. 
In the Maryland catalogue he appears as John Brock 
{vere Morgan). He had an uncle named Ferdinand 
Poulton who was at one time a member of the Society, 
but left about 1623, and was known in England under 
the alias of John Morgan. The Father Ferdinand Poul- 
ton of Maryland was born in Buckinghamshire in 1601 
or 1603 i he was educated at St. Omer's and entered the 
English College at Rome for higher studies in 1619 as 
John Brookes, aged 18 ; he entered the Society in 1622. 
He was at St. Omer's in 1633, at Watten 1636; was Su- 
perior in Maryland under the alias of John Brock for 
several years, beginning with 1638. In 1640 (19th Sep- 
tember) Governor Calvert specially summoned him as 
Ferdinand Poulton, Esquire, of St. Mary's County, to the 
Assembly. He was accidentally shot while crossing the 
St. Mary's River, June 5, 1641, says an old catalogue, 
though Br. Foley has July 5th. Father Poulton was 
professed of the four vows, December 8, 1635. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 65 

There seems to have been a great intimacy between 
the Calverts and Poultons. I find that William Poulton 
alias Sachervall, a secular priest and brother of Father 
Ferdinand, was chaplain to Mary Lady Somerset, a 
daughter of Lord Arundell of Wardour, and sister-in- 
law to Cecil Calvert Lord Baltimore. 

We are glad to be able to give a part of a most inter- 
esting and edifying letter from the pen of poor Father 
Ferdinand Poulton, written only a few weeks before his 
sad death occurred. After giving some details, most of 
which are already given in the Annual Letters above 
cited, Father Poulton continues : '' However, shortly 
after our arrival Father White again fell sick, and has not 
yet recovered his strength ; and indeed I fear that from 
his age, and increasing infirmities, nature will shortly 
succumb to such great labors. I will use my utmost 
endeavors to preserve his life, that this great work of 
God, the conversion of so many infidels, may prosper- 
ously and happily progress, as well because he possesses 
the greatest influence over their minds, as that he, best of 
any of the rest, understands and speaks their language. 
Many of the inhabitants are instructed for baptism, and 
many of the higher ranks show themselves inclined to- 
wards the Christian faith, amongst whom the chief is the 
King of the Anacostans, uncle of King Patorieck. A 
few months ago King Pascatoway sent his daughter, who 
is to succeed him in his dominions, to the town of St. 
Mary, that she may be there educated among the Eng- 
lish and instructed for baptism. Indeed, I hope, by the 
favor of God, unless our helpers fail, that in a short time 
there will be a great accession to the Christian faith in 
these barbarous nations. And this, although on account 



66 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

of the clearness of corn and the increased expenses and 
deficiency of living, we are pressed by great difficulties ; 
nor are there here in this colony any who are either able 
or willing to furnish us with alms, and Divine Providence 
shows that neither by our own exertions, nor of those 
for whose salvation we labor, be they Christians or Pa- 
gans can we hope for support. However, we have no 
fear but that He will provide us with necessaries, Who 
feeds the birds of the air that neither sow nor reap, and 
Who suppliest the Apostles, whom He sent forth without 
staff or scrip to preach the Gospel, with everything need- 
ful; for the same reason He also of His Divine Provi- 
dence will see fit to supply His unworthy servants with 
means of sustentation. The very thought in the Prefect 
of recalling us, or of not sending others to help us in 
this glorious work of the conversion of souls, in a cer- 
tain manner takes away faith in the Providence of God 
and His care of His servants, as though He would now 
less provide for the nourishment of His laborers than 
formerly. On which account our courage is not dimin- 
ished, but rather increased and strengthened ; since now 
God will take us into His protection, and will certainly 
provide for us Himself, especially since it has pleased the 
Divine Goodness already to receive some fruit however* 
small of our labors. In whatever manner it may seem 
good to His Divine Majesty to dispose of us, may His 
holy Will be done. But, as much as in me lies, I would 
rather, laboring in the conversion of the Indians, expire 
on the bare ground, deprived of all human succor and 
perishing of hunger, than once think of abandoning this 
holy work of God from the fear of want. May God 
grant me grace to render Him some service, and all the 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 6/ 

rest I leave to His Divine Providence. King Pascatoway 
lately died most piously. But God will for his sake, as 
we hope, quickly raise up seed for us in his neighboring 
King Anacostin, who has invited us to come to him, and 
has decided himself to become a Christian. Many like- 
wise in other localities desire the same. Hopes of a rich 
harvest shine forth, unless frustrated by the want of 
laborers who can speak the language and are in sound 
health." 

Father Roger Rigby, alias Robert Knowles, of 
whom we have already said a few words, came to Mary- 
land in 1 64 1. This missionary was a native of Lan- 
cashire, England, and was born in the year 1608. 
Having attained his twenty-first year he entered the 
Jesuit Novitiate at Watten. He was raised to the 
sublime dignity of the Priesthood in the year 1638, and 
was then, we believe, sent to labor in England. 

1642. ]n the mission of Maryland for the year just 
elapsed; we have had only three priests, and of these one 
was confined by sickness for three months. This was 
Father Roger Rigby — the other two being Father Philip 
Fisher, Superior of the mission, and Father Andrew 
White ; all three were sent to different parts for the pur- 
pose of collecting more spiritual fruit. The Superior, 
Father Fisher, remained principally at St. Mary's, the 
chief town of the colony, in order that he might take 
care of the English, of whom the greater number are 
settled there, and also of such Indians as do not live far 
distant or are engaged in passing backwards and for- 
wards. Father White betook himself to his former 
station at Pascataway, but Father Roger went to a new 
settlement called in the vulgar idiom Patuxen, for a 



68 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

better opportunity of learning the Indian language, also 
that he might better instruct some neophytes, and scat- 
ter the seed of faith along the bank of that great river. 
This was almost the only fruit of his labors (there). 

The severest trials of the missionaries came from the 
ingratitude and injustice of men styling themselves 
Catholics. The oppression and hatred of enemies *were 
to. be expected. The children of darkness naturally 
hate the brightness of day, the pure glories of light. 
But that the sons of the Church should seek to oppress 
and persecute Her, though, alas ! a sin so common in 
our own days, is a thing not only base and unnatural in 
itself, but even a crime, the very thought of which 
causes deep pain in every noble heart, and causes every 
generous breast to swell w^ith indignation and horror. 
And so the conduct of some of the Catholics of the colony, 
who sought to infringe upon the rights of the Church, 
caused the missionaries the most bitter pangs. A mis- 
sionary writes as follows from Maryland, in 1642 : '* One 
thing, however, remains to be mentioned with a passing 
notice, viz : that an occasion of suffering has not been 
wanting to us from those from whom we rather expected 
protection ; who, in anxiety for their own interests, have 
not hesitated to violate the immunities of the Church by 
endeavoring to enforce here the unjust laws passed in 
England, that it shall not be lawful for any person or 
community, even ecclesiastical, in any manner, even by 
gift, to acquire or possess any land, unless the per- 
mission of the civil magistrate be first obtained. And 
when our Fathers declared this to be repugnant to the 
laws of the Church, two priests were sent from England 
to teach the contrary doctrine. But it ended quite the 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES 69 

reverse of what was expected, for our reasons being 
adduced and heard, and the matter itself more clearly 
examined and understood, sentence was given in our 
favor, and received the full concurrence of the laity 
generally." 

Father John Cooper is mentioned as being in Mary- 
land in 1644, and Father Bernard Hartwell is noticed as 
dying there in 1646. We are of the opinion that these 
missionaries were in Maryland in 1642. In a letter for 
that year we read : " To our great comfort, two new 
Fathers have recently come to us from England, they 
have had a bad voyage of fourteen weeks, though it 
usually does not take more than six or eight. But of 
these, of their labors and fruits, we shall, please God, 
speak another time. We hope indeed that it will be 
abundant, and thus far we may predict much from their 
present zeal and unity of soul with us." 

If these Fathers here alluded to were not Cooper and 
Hartwell we are at a loss to know who they could have 
been, as no other new names occur in the Roman Cat- 
alogue about that period. 

Father Cooper was a native of Hants, and was born in 
16 10. In his twentieth year he entered the Society of 
Jesus. In 1645, he was one of those Fathers who were 
violently carried off to Virginia ''to the great damage of 
religion." He underwent many trials in that place and 
died there in 1646. 

Father Bernard Hartwell was born in 1607, i^ Bucks, 
England, and became a Jesuit in 1626. He was em- 
ployed for some time at St. Omer's College. We find 
that he served in that college as Prefect and Minister. 
As already stated he died in Maryland, in 1646. 



70 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Father Laurence Starkie probably succeeded Father 
Copley as Superior. This Father was sometimes called 
Sankey and Sanchez. There is no doubt that he lived 
for some time at St. Inigoes with Father Copley. From 
the fact that his name is often coupled in wills and 
other documents with Father Francis Fitzherbert's name 
I conclude that he likewise lived with that Father for 
3ome time at Newtown. He was born in the year 1606, 
and entered the Society about 1636. He was sent to 
the Lancashire District, in 1638. He arrived in Mary- 
land, in 1649. This was the year in which the great 
Toleration Act was passed in the Maryland Assembly. 
The majority of those who made religious freedom the 
law of the land were Catholics. Some of the Assembly- 
men who voted for liberty of worship belonged to the 
Newtown Congregation. We may name among them 
the unfortunate Walter Peake, William Bretton, Cuth- 
bert Fenwick, Thomas Thornborough, John Mansell of 
St. Clement's hundred, and the Honorable Robert 
Clarke. The Catholic settlers of Maryland had been 
treated as helots in their native land by the " sincere 
followers of the pure doctrine of the heaven-sent Re- 
formation ;" they had since their arrival on the shores 
of the Chesapeake felt the hatred of the Virginia Pro- 
testants ; Claiborne and Ingle, both enemies, deadly 
enemies, to the Faith of Rome, planned and plotted for 
their utter destruction, and hovered around them like 
vultures ready to pounce upon them in a moment of 
weakness; and so they wished to be avenged. And 
they avenged themselves sweetly, gloriously, triumph- 
antly. They passed the Toleration Act, and the history 
of mankind will forever proclaim to the world in the 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 7 1 

praise it gives them that they are avenged, fully, honor- 
ably avenged. Little, perhaps, they dreamed in the 
moment of their generosity in according to others what 
had been so long, and so cruelly denied themselves, that 
their kindness and magnanimity would be ill requited. 
Yet such unfortunately was the case. Puritans who had 
been expelled for non-conformity from Virginia and 
otJ;ier places, the '' Saints " who loved the sword and 
gloried in the shedding of human blood, but hated the 
Cross and abominated the purity of holy water, stalked 
in upon them from the wasted fields of England, and 
from red scenes of carnage in Ireland, and began to op- 
press and persecute them. Troopers who had learned 
canting hymns and fearful oaths in the camp of Carlyle's 
charming hero, Oliver Cromwell, began to despise their 
rights, and to trample their benefactors as worms beneath 
their feet. The missionaries became objects of special 
hate, and victims not to be spared. The light that shone 
upon Father Starkie on the day of his arrival was turned 
to gloom and darkness. As, in England, he found him- 
self proscribed and banned. To evade his enemies he 
was obliged to adopt every species of disguise. When 
he wished to visit the gentleman in his manor, or the 
Indian in his hut, he was obliged to dress as a farmer, 
or a soldier, and wear a beard that covered his breast. 
He had to adopt more than one alias. At last being 
betrayed, he was obliged to fly into Virginia where he 
died in 1657. What this Father and others suffered in 
Virginia we do not fully know. But from the enmity of 
Virginia at that period of its history towards Catholics 
we may easily guess. Forced to live unknown, to hide 



72 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

their priestly character, to pass as men of the world, they 
often suffered, no doubt, from hunger and want. In time 
of sickness they had no kind hand to assist them, no 
friendly voice to cheer them. They sank amid an accu- 
mulation of wrongs, injuries, and miseries, and were cast 
into the earth by strangers in a foreign land, without a 
prayer for their souls, without a tear for their sorrows, 
without a cross to mark their graves. 

In a school-book is written " Thomas Sankey, July 
3rd, 1608." This can hardly have been Father Starkey's 
book, as we cannot believe that he wrote his name in it 
when only two years old. Though nearly everything 
regarding the life of this Father is now lost, in his own 
time, however, he seems to have been widely known. In 
wills, he is sometimes termed the '' well-known priest, 
Father Starkie." 

About Copley's time there was in St. Mary's County 
a gentleman who signalized himself by his many virtues 
and untiring zeal. His name was so often connected 
with works of mercy that some Protestant historians 
have mistaken him for one of the Fathers. We refer to 
Mr. Ralph Crouch, who, it will be seen from the follow- 
ing account of him, taken from the English Records, 
was merely a layman while in Maryland : " Brother 
Ralph Crouch, a native of Oxford, who entered the So- 
ciety as a temporal coadjutor, was born in 1620, and 
joined the novitiate at Watten, about 1639. Soon after 
he left the noviceship, and went to Maryland, where for 
nearly twenty years he was the ' right hand and solace ' 
of the English Fathers in that laborious and extensive 
mission. Being a man of some education, he opened 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 73 

schools* for teaching humanities, gave catechetical in- 
structions to the poorer class, and was assiduous in vis- 
iting the sick. He was a man full of zeal and charity, 
and ready for every good and pious work. Being at 
length re-admitted to the Society in 1659, he returned 
to Europe, completed his noviceship at Watten, and was 
admitted to his vows in 1669. He spent the remainder 
of his life at Li6ge, remarkable for piety and patience in 
sufferings, especially in his last protracted sickness. He 
died a model of edification to all, November the i8th, 
1679, at the age of fifty-nine." 

Mr. Crouch while in Maryland was greatly assisted by 
some other religious laymen. Among these was a sur- 
geon, Henry Hooper. This gentleman, who died about 
1650, left a legacy to Ralph Crouch for such ''pious uses 
as he thinks fit." Surgeon Hooper is mentioned in the 
Annapolis Records as one of those who came with Fa- 
ther Copley. 

The next Father who labored in Newtown was Fran- 
cis Fitzherbert, alias Darby. '* He was a native of Derby- 
shire ; born 161 3; entered the Society 1634; and was 
made a Spiritual Coadjutor, September 15th, 1655. He 
was camp Missioner at Ghent in 1645 ; then Missioner 
in Portugal ; afterwards Professor of Moral Theology at 
Li^ge, and in 1654 was sent out to the Maryland Mis- 
sion. Returning from Maryland in 1652, he was sent to 
the Devonshire District. In 1672, he was in the Oxford- 
shire District, having been unoccupied for several years, 
owing to some difficulty in placing him in England." He 
died at St. Omer's, May 22d, 1687. 

^ These schools have probably the honor of being the first of 
their kind established in Maryland. 



74 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

The following graphic description of Father Fitzher- 
bert's journey to Maryland may prove interesting : 

'* 1654. This year Father Francis Fitzherbert, destined 
for Maryland, at the first intimation of our Superior, 
entered without a single companion, but with great mag- 
nanimity and alacrity, upon an arduous expedition, and a 
long and laborious journey among strangers differing 
wholly in morals and religion. Nor, during his entire 
expedition, did he lack an abundant harvest of merit, 
through his confidence in God and his extraordinary 
patience. Four ships sailed together from England, but 
were overtaken by a fearful storm as they were passing 
the Western Isles, and the ship which carried the Father 
was so shattered that, springing a leak in battling with 
the continued violence of the sea, the pump . became 
almost useless. Four men at a time, not only from the 
ship's crew, but from among the passengers also, were 
kept constantly working at the great pump, each one in 
turn day and night. 

'' Having changed the course, their intention was to 
make sail towards Baifbadoes, but no art or labor could 
accomplish this, and so they decided on abandoning the 
ship and committing themselves with their wares to the 
long boat. As, however, the swelling sea and huge waves 
prevented this also, many a form of death presented itself 
to their minds and the habit of terror, now grown a 
familiar thought, had almost excluded the particular fear 
of death. The tempest lasted in all two months, whence 
the opinion arose that it did not come from the storm of 
sea or sky, but was occasioned by the malevolence of 
demons. Forthwith they seized a little old woman sus- 
pected of sorcery, and after examining her with the 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 75 

strictest severity, they killed her, whether guilty or not 
guilty, as the suspected cause of all the evil. The corpse 
and whatever belonged to her they cast into the sea. 
However, the winds did not in consequence abate their 
violence, nor did the raging sea smooth its threatening 
billows. To the troubles of the storm sickness was added 
next, which attacked almost every person and carried off 
not a few. The Father himself escaped untouched by 
the disease, but in working at the pump somewhat too 
laboriously, he contracted a slight fever of a few days' 
continuance. Having passed through multiplied dan- 
gers, at length, by the favor of God, the ship reached the 
port of Maryland." 

A regular chapel was probably built in the time of 
Father Fitzherbert, at Newtown. In the trial of this 
Father at St. Leonard's Creek, the 5th of October, 1658, 
one of the charges brought against him was that he tried 
to force Dr. Thomas Gerrard, the proprietor of St. Cle- 
ment's Manor, Bedlam Neck, to go to church on Sun- 
days. Father Fitzherbert seems to have been a very 
zealous missionary. This is proved by the very charges * 
brought against him by the enemies of religion in his 
time. He was a man of courage and resolve, and we owe 
him a debt of deep gratitude, on account of the noble 
course he pursued during his famous trial. Being 
accused, among other things, of preaching and teaching 
at Newtown and Chaptico, he neither denied nor acknow- 

* We learn from the indictment of Father Fitzherbert that he 
vyas fond of preaching to his people, and that he was not unwilling 
to address even Protestant audiences. He was very zealous in 
spreading Catholic books and Catechisms all around him. Henry 
Coursey accuses him of saying that **he must be directed by his 
conscience more than by the law of any country." 



76 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

ledged the charge, but defended himself under the plea 
that '' by the very first law of this country, Holy Church, 
within this province, shall have and enjoy all her rights, 
liberties, and franchises, wholly and without blemish, 
amongst which that of preaching and teaching is not the 
least. Neither imports it what church is there meant ; 
as by the true intent of the Act concerning religion, 
every church professing to believe in God the Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, is accounted Holy Church here. 
Because by the act entitled 'An Act Concerning Religion,' 
it is provided that no person whatsoever, professing to 
believe in Jesus Christ shall be molested for or in respect 
of his or her religion, or the free exercise thereof. And 
undoubtedly preaching and teaching is the free exercise 
of every churchman's religion. And upon this I crave 
judgment." 

The decision of the court was favorable to Father 
Fitzherbert. It is given in the following terms: "The 
opinion of the Board is, that it is neither rebellion nor 
mutiny to utter such words alledged in the 4th article, if 
it were proved." 

In 1658 Father Thomas Pay ton came to labor on the 
Maryland Mission. This Father was a native of Lin- 
colnshire, England, and was born in the year 1607. He 
entered the Society in 1630. His first priestly labors, 
we believe, were as camp missioner in Belgium. In 1649 
he was employed in the London District, and six years 
later on we find him employed as missioner in the Hants 
District. Having spent one year and a half of zealous 
toils in Maryland, he was obliged on account of special 
business to return to England. Returning again to his 
Maryland Mission he died on the voyage, January the 
1 2th, 1660. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES.* 7/ 



CHAPTER IV. 



In 1 66 1, that is about twelve years before Father Mar- 
quette floated down the Mississippi in his birch-bark 
canoe, and about twenty-one years before La Salle made 
his way to the Gulf of Mexico, Father Henry Warren,* 
alias Pelham, completed with distinction his fourth year 
of theology in one of the English Colleges on the Euro- 
pean Continent. Immediately afterwards he was sent on 
the '* happy Mission of Maryland." On his arrival, accord- 
ing to some old documents, he obtained a conveyance of 
all Church property from Mr. Fenwick to himself, "Mr- 
Copley's successor." On October the 6th, 1662, he pro- 
cured the Patent of St. Thomas' Manor from Dr. Thomas 
Matthews. 

Henry Warren was a native of '' brave old Kent," in 
England, He was born in 1635, and was of good family. 
He was probably the brother of Father William, who, at 
the age of nineteen, was converted to the Catholic Faith 
by a priest in England. William was not a Jesuit, as 
Oliver erroneously states, but a pious and devoted sec- 
ular priest. It was to him that Father Barton referred 
when he said : '' Father Warren was a man who never 
sinned in Adam." 

^ Father Warren was the son of WiUiam Warren and his wife 
Anne Downes. He entered the Society in 1652, being then about 
seventeen years of age. 



78 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Henry, having arrived at his seventeenth year, en- 
tered the Society. In February, 1670, he was professed 
of the four vows. He was in Maryland at the time of 
his profession, as we find him named Superior of the 
Mission in 1665. After laboring for some years in Mary- 
land he was recalled to England. During the remainder 
of his life he was obliged to live in the midst of dangers 
and hardships. He lived in the midst of persecution. 
The old block that is now on exhibition in London 
Tower was then red and wet with the blood of his breth- 
ren. He was the minister of a proscribed creed, and 
went on his duties with a price set upon his head. He 
was in England during the bloody Revolution of 1688. 
Just before this unhappy event great efforts were made 
to gain a firm footing at Oxford for the Fathers. If this 
could be done great hopes might be entertained of stem- 
ming the flood of heresy and corruption that deluged 
the fair garden of the Church in England. Father War- 
ren was one of the Fathers chosen for this difficult, dan- 
gerous, and important task. Among the distinguished 
Catholics at that time in Oxford were William Joyner, 
the uncle of Father Thomas Phillips, an author of repute, 
and John Dryden, who but a short period before had 
written of the Church as 

" A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged." 

The arrival of William of Orange in England quickly 
dashed the hopes of the Catholics to the ground. The 
Revolutionary storm burst forth, and Persecution once 
more drew its merciless and blood-stained sword. 
Throughout all England, but especially in Oxford, the 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 79 

Catholics were hunted down and trampled upon. The 
following letter from Father Warren, written some time 
after, will help to give us an idea of the state of things 
around him. The letter was sent to the Provincial, Fa- 
ther John Clare (Sir John Warner, Bart), and is couched 
in disguised terms for prudence' sake : 

Oxford, 2d May, 1690. 
Hon. Sir : — You are desirous to know how things are 
with us in these troublesome times, since trade (religion) 
is so much decayed. I can only say that in the general 
decline of trade we have had our share. For, before this 
turn, we were in a very hopeful way, for we had three 
public shops (chapels) open in Oxford. One did wholly 
belong to us, and good custom we had, viz : the Univer- 
sity (University College Chapel) ; but now it's shut up ; 
the master was taken, and ever since in prison, and the 
rest forced to abscond. In Mag. (Magdalen College) we 
had one good man in a good station, and in time might 
have had more concern ; but now, all is blown over, and 
our master, Thomas Beckett, one evening was thrown 
down in the kennel, trampled upon, and had been killed, 
had not one, upon the noise, come up with a candle. 
In Christ Church, though we had no man, yet the mas- 
ter was reconciled by us, and in a short time would have 
taken one (of the Society), but now he is fled, and the 
shop shut up. In other places all were farced to fly, 
and ever since to hide for fear of the law. Mr. Luson 
(Father Edward Levison) was so closely pursued, that 
he was forced to quit his horse, and by ways full of water 
and dirt to walk in his boots, twenty-two hours together, 
sometimes up to the middle, so that before he could reach 



80 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

any place to rest in security, the blood was settled in his 
feet. No rents are paid, and worse things we expect, if 
some better settlement be not soon found out ; of which 
we are still in some hope. Thus, in short, I have sent 
you what I know, and am, honoured sir. 

Your very humble servant, 

Henry Pelham. 

To be a priest in those times, to be a priest who was 
faithful to his God, required no ordinary courage. He, 
who, like Father Warren, was true to his vocation during 
the Penal Days, '^ that dark time of cruel wrong,'' was 
undoubtedly a hero, an apostle, a noble soldier of the 
Cross. In 1701 we find Father Warren still laboring in 
the Oxfordshire District. The Catholics at that period 
who claimed his ministrations were not numerous, but 
they were far apart, and he was obliged to serve them in 
secret, and at the peril of his life. 

The Superior of St. Mary's Residence, the headquart- 
ers of Father Warren, and from which he sallied forth 
under the cover of night, and in disguise, to attend his 
persecuted flock, was Father Francis Hildesley, a man 
** who admirably administered the duties of his office." 
His co-laborers were Fathers John Alcock, alias Gage, 
Charles Collingwood, Edward Levison, John Mostyn, 
and Thomas Poulton. 

Father Warren was not only a good religious and a 
fervent missionary, but was also a man of great business 
capacity. Like Father Copley, he attended to the tem- 
poral affairs of the Mission, and like him he was prudent 
and far-seeing. After a long life of constant toils and 
sufferings, he crowned his days with a peaceful and 



I ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 8 1 

happy death in the scene of his last labors on June the 
7th, 1702, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. 

The name of Father Peter Manners appears in the 
Catalogue for 1664. 

I will here take the liberty of citing some extracts 
from the Maryland Annual Letters : 

1669. Two Fathers have charge of the Maryland 
Mission ; a third, Father Peter Manners, was suddenly 
taken from amongst us in the beginning of his fruitful 
labors, no less to the regret than to the loss of the in- 
habitants. To repair our deficiency, two priests and a 
temporal coadjutor were sent over this autumn, so that 
the Mission now comprises four priests and three tem- 
poral coadjutors. 

Father Peter Manners, vere Pelcon, who was one of 
the most zealous of the missionary Fathers, was unhap- 
pily drowned in crossing a river. The Provincial, Fa- 
ther Joseph Simeon, has left us the following description 
of him : 

Father Peter Manners was a native of Norfolk, thirty- 
eight years of age. He spent twelve years in the So- 
ciety, most of them in the Maryland Mission, with great 
zeal and fruit. He ended his days on Wednesday in the 
Easter week of this year (April 24th, 1669), by a sudden 
but not an unprovided death. Obedience directed him 
to it, and charity consummated his course, even amidst 
the waters, which could not extinguish his charity, though 
they did extinguish his life. For having been summoned 
to a distant call of duty, whilst crossing a rapid mill- 
stream, which had become unusually swollen by the 
rains, he, together with his horse, was carried away by 



82 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

the torrent and drowned. He was deeply regretted by 
his people. 

John Pennington was born in 1647 i^ the city of Lon- 
don. Of the Jesuits that he saw in his youthful days he 
could tell many a strange story. The terrible fate that 
had befallen many of them whom young Pennington had 
met did not deter him from following their example. It 
rather incited him the more to enter their ranks in the 
hope of one day attaining the martyr's crown. Perse- 
cution only adds to the courage and generosity of every 
true child of the Church. So in his nineteenth year, 
John Pennington put on bravely and cheerfully the pro- 
scribed mantle of the Jesuit, in the Novitiate of Watten. 

Watten* is about two leagues distant from St. Omer. 
In 1625 the English Jesuit Novitiate was removed from 
Liege to that place. In 1702, dementia. Countess of 
Flanders, founded a church at Watten in honor of the 
Blessed Virgin, St. Nicholas, and St. Richerius ; and to 
this was subsequently attached a College of Regular 
Canons. On its dissolution, St. Pius V. annexed it to 
the newly-founded See of St. Omer. With the consent 
of the Dean and Chapter, and of the Court of Brussels, 
the Church and Manor, with a revenue of three thousand 
florins, were conveyed in perpetuity by the Bishop, James 

^ A report for 1705 observes : Although this house (Watten No- 
vitiate), buried in the remote sohtude of the mountain, would seem 
to be rather devoted to the study of the interior life alone, never- 
theless the novices once a week gave catechism and Christian 
doctrine in the villages to the distance of two or three German 
miles. On the greater feasts one thousand, and often one thou- 
sand two hundred from these villages flocked to the church to re- 
ceive the holy sacraments, which might well be styled the sanctu- 
ary of those rural districts. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 83 

Blase, O. S. F., for the Novitiate of the Enghsh Jesuits. 
This grant was ratified by the Father-General Aquaviva 
in 1612. 

At Watten our youth learned to deny himself, to fly 
from worldly grandeur, and to pant after the glory of 
God. He was carefully exercised in humble offices that 
he might learn more thoroughly to understand the virtue 
of humility of spirit. His hours were chiefly spent in 
pious reading, and in close communion with his Maker 
by means of mental prayer. 

After leaving Watten Father Pennington was sent to 
Liege to study his theology at the celebrated Jesuit Col- 
lege in that city. In 1678 he was employed in mission- 
ary duty in the College* of the Immaculate Conception 
(Derby District). From England he was sent out to 
help the missionaries in Maryland, who stood very much 
in need of fellow-laborers. During the time he was in 
Maryland some of the Fathers, to their other duties, 
added that of teaching. In 1677 a school for humanities 
was opened by the Society, in the centre of the country. 
It was directed by two of the Fathers. The Annual 
Letters say : The native youth, applying themselves 
assiduously to study, make good progress. Maryland 
and the recently established school sent two boys to St- 
Omer, who yielded in abilities to few Europeans when 

^ About thirty-eight years before Father Pennington's time, Fa- 
ther Henry Wilkinson, in this same residence, was arrested, then 
committed to prison, and arraigned at the bar, but no sufficient 
evidence of the priesthood appearing against him, the heretical 
oath of allegiance was tendered to him, and upon his refusing to 
take it, he was condemned to the penalty of preiminire. After 
three years imprisonment l^e was liberated by some soldiers. 



84 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

competing for the honour of being first in their class. 
So that not gold, nor silver, nor the other products of the 
earth alone, but men also, are gathered from thence to 
bring those regions, which foreigners have unjustly called 
ferocious, to a higher state of virtue and cultivation. 
Two of the Society were sent out to Maryland this year 
to assist the laborers in that most ample vineyard of our 
Lord. 

Father John Pennington did not last long amid the 
fatigues and hardships of the Maryland Mission. He 
departed this life on the i8th of October, 1685, in the 
thirty-eighth year of his age. I find him named in some 
documents as " Mr. John Pennington of St. Clement's 
Bay.'' This is sufficient proof that he resided for some 
time at Newtown. 

The name of Father John Matthews appears in the 
Catalogue for 1691. This Father was born in London, 
1658, and entered the Society on the 9th of October, 
1677. After having served the Maryland Mission with 
fidelity and zeal, he died at Newtown on the 8th of De- 
cember, 1694, at the age of thirty-six years. 

Father William Hunter came to Maryland in 1692, 
and became Superior of the Mission four years later on. 
Father Hunter was a native of Yorkshire, and was born 
in 1659. He entered the Society in his twentieth year. 
After his ordination he spent one year in missionary 
labors in England. He died in Maryland, August the 
15th, 1723. 

Father John Hall, another of the missionaries, came 
to Maryland in 1692. In 1696 we find him named as 
Procurator. Before 1698 he returned to Europe and 
appears as Minister and Professor of Casuistry at Ghent 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 85 

for the years 1700 and 1701. Father Hall died at Ghent 
on the 9th of July, 1703, aged thirty-nine years. 

Father James Gonent, a native of Artois, born in 1653, 
was not destined by Providence to work in the Maryland 
Mission. This good Father died on the voyage to Am- 
erica in 1698. 

The name of Rev. James Haddock appears in the 
Catalogue for 1699. His name is also found in some of 
the old books of the Newtown Library. He belonged 
to the Order of Minorites of Strict Observance. 

Father Matthew Brooke was born in Maryland in 1672. 
Being already a priest, he entered the Society in 1699. 
In the Catalogue for 1701 he is mentioned as being at 
Li^ge preparing for his examination. He served for a 
short time in Charles County, and died at St. Thomas 
Manor in 1702. 

Father William Wood came to Maryland in 1700. 
He was born in Surrey in February, 1671. He entered 
the Society in 1689, and was professed of the four vows. 
He took the name of Guillick as his alias. Father Wood 
spent twenty years in the Maryland Mission, in which he 
died in August, 1720. 

Father Richard Kirkham, alias Latham, came to Ma- 
ryland in 1703. This missionary was born in Lancashire 
on the 31st of July, 1671. He entered the Society in 
169 1, as Richard Latham, vere Kirkham. He is named 
in the Diary of Mr. Blundell, of Crosby. '' Dr. Richard 
Latham came hither to show the petition which was 
presented to the:Queen by Bernard Howard on behalf 
of the said Dr. Latham, Mr. Hagerston, etc., March 29th, 
1703, and Latham went hence to Liverpool in hopes to 
take shipping t^ Virginia, January 29th, 1703. I went 



86 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

with Mr. Richard Latham to Liverpool and helped him 
to buy goods." Father Richard died on his return voy- 
age to England from Maryland in 1708. 

The name of Father Thomas Percy, a native of Shrop- 
shire, appears in the Roman Catalogue for 1682. This 
Father soon after returned to England, and died in Ghent 
January 25th, 1685. 

Father Henry Cattaway, who also came to Maryland 
in 1703, was born in Suffolk in September, 1675. He 
entered the Society in 1693. After spending about three 
years in the Maryland Mission he returned to England 
and served the mission in the College of St. Chad, Staf- 
ford District, until 1710, when he was sent to the College 
of the Immaculate Conception, Derby District, and died 
probably in the same College, March 13th, 171 8, aged 
forty-three years. 

Father Thomas Havers appears in the Catalogue for 
1705. This Father was a native of Thelton, County 
Cambridge, born February 28th, 1668. He entered the 
Society at Watten, September 7th, 1688. In 1701 he 
was Prefect at St. Omer's College. This Father was of 
a delicate constitution, and as the Catalogue for 1730 
observes, extremely infirm. He died at Watten, May the 
i6th, 1737. 

Father Thomas Hodgson was a native of Yorkshire, 
born on the 2d of November, 1682. He entered the 
Society in September, 1703. In 171 1 he was sent to the 
Maryland Mission. He died at Bohemia Manor, Cecil 
County, Maryland, on the 14th of December, 1726. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 8/ 



CHAPTER V. 



In Br. Henry. Foley's Collectanea we have the follow- 
ing account of another early missionary : Father Edward 
Tidder, alias Edward Ingleby, was a native of Suffolk, 
born 1630; entered the Society September 7th, 1652, 
and was professed of the four vows (under the name of 
Edward Ingleby, according to a list of professions in the 
archives, but as Edward Tidder, in the Catalogue of the 
Province), on February 2d, 1672. Being ordained priest 
April 1 6th, 1661, he was sent soon afterwards to the 
Maryland Mission, where he is traced from 1663 till 1667. 
In 1669 he was missioner, and Procurator or Superior in 
the College of the Holy Apostles (Suffolk District). In 
1679 he succeeded the martyred Procurator of the Prov- 
ince, Father William Ireland, and retained that office for 
some years, and is named Edward Ingleby in a letter 
from Father Warner [alias Clare), the Provincial, to the 
Father-General, dated St. Omer's College, June 15th, 
1690. {Anglia, Stonyhurst MSS., vol. v., n. no.) The 
temporal affairs of the Province had been nearly brought 
to ruin by the persecution in the Gates Plot, and espe- 
cially by means of a traitor agent, and Fathers Edward 
Petre and Tidder made great efforts to gather up the 
scattered fragments. Great difficulty is expressed in the 
above letter of finding means to support the members of 
the Province, who were either lying in prisons, or had no 



55 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

patrons to whom to resort, for many of the noblemen 
and gentry who formerly retained a chaplain, were then 
afraid or unable to do so, both on account of their reduced 
means and of the dangerous times. August, 1678-91, he 
retired for a short time in concealment, and ventured 
back again in November following, as the Provincial 
expresses in a letter to the Father-General, November 
7th, 1679. (Father John Warner's Note and Letter- 
Book.) In September, 1679, he was appointed Vice- 
Rector of St. Ignatms' College, London (Id.). He is 
mentioned in several other letters of the Provincial in 
the same Note and Letter-Book. He went to reside at 
the New College in the Savoy, Strand, May 24th, 1687. 
(See Records S. J., vol. v., p. 265.) He was Vice-Pro- 
vincial in England in 1690, and his death is recorded in 
the Necrology of the Province, in the name of Edward 
Ingleby, in London, January 2d, 1699. 

Father George Pole appears in Maryland in 1668. 
This Father was a native of Derbyshire, and was born in 
1628. He entered the Society in 1656. In 1658 he was 
missioner in the Yorkshire District, and during 1665 in 
the adjoining Residence of St. John (the Durham Dis- 
trict). He died in the Maryland Mission on the 31st of 
October, 1669. 

We will give here the copy of a letter from Father 
Joseph Simeons, Provincial, to the Very Rev. Father- 
General, recounting the death of Father Pole : 

Very Rev. Father in Christ, Pax Christi : 

On the 31st of October, 1669, died in Maryland, Fr. 
Geo. Pole. He volunteered himself two years before for 
that arduous Mission in America, having in the preced- 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 89 

ing year, when the plague raged in London, heroically 
devoted himself to the service of the afflicted. If any- 
thing else in his praise can be collected, it shall later on 
be put into the form of a eulogy. In the meantime, I 
humbly beg your Paternity to be pleased to order the 
usual suffrages for the repose of his soul. Since the 
Superior of Maryland writes word that Ours, on account 
of their fewness in numbers, are worn out with over- 
work, the sick even, as was the case with Father George 
Pole, being obliged to assist the dying, I humbly ask 
your Paternity to allow the Provincial to send there some 
who have finished their studies. 

Your V. Rev. Paternity's humble Serv't in Christ, 

Joseph Simeons. 
London, 28th Feb., 1669. 

According to the Annual Letters for 1671, Father 
William Pelham died in the Maryland Mission in that 
year. This missionary was born about the year 1624, in 
Suffolk, England. He entered the Society in 1643. 

Twelve years afterwards we find him zealously labor- 
ing at the College of the Holy Apostles. 

The Fitzwilliams of Lincoln, England, gave some dis- 
tinguished members to the Society of Jesus. William, 
George, and John, alias Villiers, were probably brothers 
by blood, as well as by the holy ties of the religious 
profession. Father George made his studies at the 
English College, at Rome. The other two brothers 
pursued their studies both at St. Omer's and at the Eter- 
nal City. William leaves us the following statement : 
" My true name is William Fitzwilliam. I am son of 
William Fitzwilliam and Frances Hilliard, both Catholics 



90 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

and of distinction. I was born in Lincolnshire. I have 
no relatives surviving on my father's side, and have an 
only sister married to Lord Percy. On my mother's 
side are two uncles and two aunts living in the County 
of Suffolk. But for the oppression of Catholics by the 
heretics, my parents would be living in very good cir- 
cumstances." 

Father John Villiers made his Novitiate at Watten. 
Soon after his ordination he was sent to the Maryland 
Mission where his death occurred on the 30th of Octo- 
ber, in the year 1665. 

Father Francis Pennington was born in Worcestershire 
in 1644, and entered the Society in his twentieth year. 
He, in company with Father Nicholas Gulick and two 
lay-brothers sailed with the royal fleet from London in 
1675. They arrived safely in Maryland towards the end 
of autumn. Father Pennington soon became noted for 
his zeal and prudence, and was chosen, in 1684, to suc- 
ceed Father Michael Forster as Superior of the Mission. 
His days were cast in evil times. He was Superior of 
Maryland during the Protestant Revolution of 1689. He 
witnessed all the horrors of that black time. His heart 
must have often bled to see the fatal triumphs of the 
enemies of religion, to see churches desecrated, to see 
his people persecuted and his priests '^ hunted down like 
wolves." To add to the sorrows of Father Pennington 
he saw some of his dear fellow-priests dying at their posts 
around him. 

Though the Collectanea says that Father Francis Pen- 
nington died on his passage back to Europe, I learn from 
an old document before me that he expired on the 22d 
of February, 1699, in the house of Mr. Hill, in Newtown. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 9 1 

It is probable that he was taken suddenly ill while visit- 
ing some members of his congregation. 

Father Nicholas Guillick was a native of Rouen, and 
was born in 1647. I^ ^^is twenty-second year he entered 
the Novitiate at Watten. In 1675 we find him as mis- 
sioner at Watten, but even then destined by his Superior 
for the Maryland Mission. 

Among the missionaries in Maryland in 1677, was 
Father Thomas Gavan, who is thought, with much rea- 
son, to have been the brother of Father John Gavan, who 
suffered at Tyburn on June the 30th, 1679. Father John 
*' was a man of remarkable talent, and a noted preacher, 
and was called the silver trumpet, from his sweet and 
clear intonation of voice." The missionary. Father 
Thomas Gavan, was probably of the Norrington-Wilts 
family. He was born in London in 1646, and became a 
Jesuit novice in 1668. After having labored for some 
years in Maryland, he returned to England in 1685, and 
served the Mission of Thelton, in the College of the 
Holy Apostles, for some time. He was then sent to the 
Hampshire District, and subsequently to the College of 
St. Francis Xavier (the Hereford and South Wales Dis- 
trict). He died piously in Lincolnshire, on June the 4th, 
1712. 

Father Michael Forster, alias Gulick, comes before us 
in the annals as Superior of Maryland in 1678. This 
missionary belonged to a truly Catholic family of dis- 
tinction who suffered much on account of their fidelity to 
the ancient Faith. His father, Mr. Henry Forster, who, 
after the death of his wife entered the Society as a Coad- 
jutor Brother, '' was a man of birth, and highly connected 
in the County of Suffolk. He was one of the six chil- 



92 OLD CATHOLIC MARYIAND AND 

dren of Christopher Forster, Esq., of the Parish of Cop- 
doke, in Suffolk, by his mother, Elizabeth Rookwood, of 
the ancient family of that name. He married the eldest 
of three co-heiresses, daughters of a Mr. Mason, of the 
County of Huntingdon, and had twelve children. The 
nine who survived infancy, namely, six daughters and 
three sons, all entered religion/* 

Christopher Forster and Elizabeth Rookwood, the 
grandparents of this missionary, '^ were both persons of 
unspotted fame and reputation, and great sufferers for 
their religion, both as to imprisonment and loss of 
means." Their son, Henry, the father of our mission- 
ary, was a model of every virtue both in the world and 
in religion. He '* was one of those several Catholic 
families who compounded with the King not to be mo- 
lested from abroad upon the account of religion, and 
thus he and his wife enjoyed themselves in all peace and 
prosperity from about the twenty-fourth to the forty- 
second year of his age, in as well a regulated family as 
any doubtless in England, keeping always an open 
chapel as long as the times did allow it, and Mass con- 
stantly about eight in the morning; and at four after din- 
ner on Sundays and Holidays Vespers of the Divine 
Office, read by the priest, and always at nine at night the 
long litanies, and in Holy Week the whole office of the 
Church with all its ceremonies." But great trials and 
troubles came at last. The mother of our missionary" 
passed away suddenly on Good Friday, about the hour 
of Tenebrae. She left behind her nine children — *' three 
sons and six daughters — whereof Michael^ the least and 
last, had scarce a year old complete. But this," writes 
one of Mr. Forster's sons, '' was as it were only a little 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 93 

prologue to the grand scene which soon followed, the 
cruel wars not long after breaking out, and a great per- 
secution against Catholics, whereof my father had his 
share. What stories were not raised against him ? of 
armies under ground which he had trained up in his 
court by night ; of I know not how many cooks, who 
after having dressed and served in a vast number of oxen, 
and not so much as a bone coming out again for them to 
pick, all quitted his house and service ; and the maid of 
the parson of the next parish was said to have taken her 
oath that she saw a cart load of bright armor enter in 
our great gate, which vain and false report gained so 
much upon sober men, that three nights together our 
house was beset by men sent by the Chief of Ipswich for 
to discover the hidden arms, etc., but the rabble of Ip- 
swich was so incensed thereby, that they could scarce be 
kept from gathering into a head to come and pull down 
the house over our heads, lest we should cut their throats 
with the hidden army, and what they long threatened, 
six or seven thousand not long after of the rabble, out of 
the associated counties did in a manner effect, our house 
being the fourth they rifled and defaced, in so much so, 
that one Squire Blosse, a Protestant neighbor, coming to 
see it afterwards could not forbear weeping. Indeed, my 
father had this advantage over his fellow-Catholic neigh- 
bors who complained more of the insolence of their own 
parishioners than of those who came afar off, whereas the 
whole parish urged and offered to take arms to withstand 
the rabble, and defend our house, which my father re- 
fused, to hinder the mischief which might thence acrue 
to the parish itself, choosing rather to see his house and 
self perish than to permit any harm to happen to any one 



94 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

of them, resolved according to the example of others of 
his CathoHc neighbors to abandon all to God's holy 
Providence; but the parish would not rest here, but 
came in the night with carts to transport the chief mov- 
ables to their own houses, to which my father consented 
in part, fearing lest finding the house wholly unfurnished 
it might occasion their own plunder." 

It would be going beyond the purpose of this book to- 
recount all the trials and sufferings of Mr. Henry Forster. 
It will be sufficient to say that the rabble endeavored to 
catch that worthy gentleman in order to be able to burn 
him to death in one of his own rooms; that his estate 
was sequestrated, and that being thus reduced in circum- 
stances he was obliged " to break up house-keeping, and 
let out half the manner (manor) house, with tillage to a 
tenant, and make money upon his own stock to live upon 
in the other part of the house, as it were privately, reduc- 
ing his family of some twenty, to himself, nine children, 
and one maid, and priest when at home." After an end- 
less series of persecutions, Mr. Forster determined to 
leave England and go into exile. He retired to Belgium. 
After spending some time at Antwerp he removed to 
Brussels, where he lived for nearly three years. During 
this period *' he dieted himself and Michael with Mr. 
Bedingfield, but put his daughters to pension among the 
Devotes, and not into monasteries, not to seem to thrust 
them into religion, but to leave it wholly to God and 
their own choice." 

Michael, at a very early period, was sent to St. Omer's 
to make his studies. On the 30th of October, 1659, be- 
ing then about eighteen years of age, he was admitted an 
Alumnus of the English College in Rome. On the 5th 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 95 

of April, 1660, he left the College and entered the Society 
at Watten. According to the Collectayiea he came to 
Maryland in 1669. He died in Maryland on February 
the 6th, I684. Father John Warner, Provincial, in a let- 
ter to the Very Rev. Father-General, dated August the 
20th, 1680, mentions a report that a school had been 
established in Maryland, of which Father Michael was 
Superior, in w^hich they taught humanities with great 
success. 

One of the teachers in this early school was Thomas 
Hothersall, an Approved Scholastic, who went by the 
alias Slater. Mr. Hothersall was the son of William 
Hothersall and his wife Ann Slater, both of the middle 
class of Society. '' The Slaters," says a note in the Col- 
lectanea^ " were a good Catholic yeoman family, Thomas 
Slater appearing in a list of non-jurors in 17x5, as hold- 
ing an estate at Grimsargh, adjoining the township of 
Hothersall. They were, later, connected by marriage 
with the Heatleys of Brindle Lodge." Thomas was pro- 
bably the uncle of Father William Hothersall, who was 
the last Jesuit Rector of the English College, Rome, from 
1766, until the Suppression in 1773. Mr. Thomas Hoth- 
ersall was born at Grimsargh, and had one brother and 
two sisters. He was always a Catholic, and made his 
studies at St. Omer's College. He became a Jesuit on 
the 20th of June, 1668. From the Catalogue we learn, 
that though he studied theology, he was never ordained 
priest. Two of this old Catholic and loyal Lancashire 
family, the Hothersall family, probably uncles of Thomas, 
lost their lives in the service of their Sovereign in the 
civil war. These were George, a lieutenant at Liverpool, 
and John, a captain at Greenhalgh, Lancashire. Mr. 



96 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Thomas Hothersall died in Maryland, in the year 1698, 
aged 56 years. 

1 67 1. In the mission of Maryland this year, are two 
priests and two temporal coadjutors. The mission bears 
no little fruit, as we learn from the last letters, and its 
fruit would be still greater were the labourers more in 
number. Few are living of those sent in former years. 
Two died this year. Father William Pelham and Thomas 
Sherborne, a lay-brother. There were fifty converts, 
many of high note, and fifty-four were baptized. 

1672. Two priests and two lay-brothers have laboured 
diligently in the conversion of heretics and in strengthen- 
ing and instructing Catholics, and no little fruit has been 
gained by them this year. 

Since the last account seventy-four converts have been 
made and one hundred persons baptized. 

1673. This year there were two priests, and a lay- 
brother who attended to the temporal affairs of the mis- 
sion, whilst the Fathers devoted their labours chiefly to 
confirming the Catholics in their faith, and instilling unto 
them the principles and practices of piety. They treated 
also occasionally with the Protestants, of whom they have 
reconciled twenty-eight to the Church. They baptized 
seventy infants. 

Two Franciscan Fathers were sent last year from Eng- 
land as coadjutors in the labours of the mission, between 
whom and ourselves fraternal charity and oflfices of mu- 
tual friendship are exercised, to the common good of the 
Catholic cause. 

1674. There were three priests this year and one lay- 
brother. Thirty-four converts were received, and sev- 
enty-five baptisms administered. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 97 

1677. The mission was increased at the end of the 
year by two members ; one a priest and the other a lay- 
brother. Brother Francis Knatchbull died here June 6th, 
1677. He was admitted at Watten, November 20th, 
1671, and while yet in his noviceship, being full of zeal, 
he asked with great earnestness for the mission of Mary- 
land, and obtained his request at the end of the year 
1674 ; he lived in it only two years. 

According to the English Records, Francis Knatch- 
bull was not a priest, but a lay-brother. Father Robert 
Knatchbull, who was for some time at Ghent, and served 
the Missions of Brough and Walton Hall, County York, 
was a native of Maryland ; he was born in 17 16, made 
his humanities at St. Omer's, and entered the Society in 

1735. 




98 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 



CHAPTER VI. 



Before proceeding any further, it may be well to 
devote some space to the Protestant Revolution of 1689. 
We are glad to be able to state that all the non-Catholic 
authors whom we had occasion to consult speak in just 
and honorable terms of the Catholics of that period. 
Mr. Davis, who is one of the very best authorities in 
matters connected with Maryland's early history, and 
who seems everywhere free from prejudice, deserves our 
gratitude for the manner in which he deals with this 
question. A few words are here necessary as to the 
character of St. Mary's early settlers. '' These," writes 
Mr. Thomas D'Arcy McGee, in his Catholic History of 
North America, " were chiefly of the better classes of 
England and Ireland ; educated young men in search of 
employments ; heads of families in search of cheaper 
subsistence ; men, proud of their ancient faith, who pre- 
ferred an altar in the desert to a coronet at court ; pro- 
fessional or trading men, bound by interest and sympathy 
to these better classes. They composed a wise and 
select community worthy of their rich inheritance." 
From the very beginning they treated others as they 
themselves would wish to be treated. They were 
neither cruel nor unjust. They dealt fairly with the 
poor red men, teaching them the comforts of civilization 
and the consolations of religion, and paying them with 
conscientious strictness for their furs, game, and land. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 99 

Vile and unscrupulous miscreants took advantage of 
the friendship that existed between the Catholic settlers 
and the Indians to accuse the former of a black and 
horrible crime. They accused them of entering into a 
compact with the Indians for the purpose of slaying all 
their Protestant neighbors. 

"The history of the Protestant revolution in 1689/* 
writes Mr. Davis, "has never yet been fully written. 
But there is evidence upon the records of the English 
government to show it was the result of a panic, 
produced by one of the most dishonorable falsehoods 
which has ever disgraced any religious or any political 
party — by the story, in a few words, that the Roman 
Catholics had formed a conspiracy with the Indians, to 
massacre the Protestants. The testimony comes from 
the most respectable sources — not only from the mem- 
bers of the Catholic Church, but also from many of the 
most prominent Protestants of the province, including the 
Honorable Thomas Smyth, the ancestor of the Smyths 
of Trumpington, subsequently of Chestertown ; from 
Major Joseph Wickes, at one time Chief Justice of the 
County Court, and many years a distinguished repre- 
sentative of Kent ; from the Honorable Henry De 
Courcy (then written Coiirsey)^ a descendant, it is 
strongly presumed, of an illustrious Anglo-Norman, and 
a perfect master of the whole aboriginal diplomacy of 
that period ; from Michael Taney, the high sheriff of 
Calvert County, and the ancestor of the lamented Chief 
Justice Taney ; from Richard Smith, a brave and gen- 
erous spirit, connected with the family of Somerset, 
and the forefather of the Smiths of St. Leonard's Creek, 
and of the Dulanys and the Addisons ; and from Captain 



lOO OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Thomas Claggett, the progenitor of the first AngHcan 
Bishop of Maryland.'^ With Mr. Davis all Catholics 
will heartily join in saying, *'the opposition of these 
Protestants is, indeed honorable, in the highest degree 
to their memory." 

Enough has been said to show the spirit of the party 
that supplanted the Catholic Governors in St. Mary's. 
What has been written will also show how powerless 
were the conscientious little body of Catholics in South- 
ern Maryland to stem the torrents of corruption 
rebellion, fraud, and persecution that rushed in upon 
them in 1689. 

Coodc's rebel friends succeeded in overthrowing the 
kind government of the Calverts, and a new Governor, 
Sir Lionel Copley, arrived in Maryland early in 1692, 
and received control of the colony from the hands of the 
*' Committee of Safety." 

Among those who boldly defended the fair name of 
the Catholics at this period,* were Michael Taney and 
Henry Darnall. Both these gentlemen were high in the 
favor of the Lord Proprietary, and were honored and 
respected, by all true lovers of peace and prosperity in 
the province. Their letters proving the falsity of the 
charges brought against the Catholics may be found in 
The Day-Star, " Taney was one of the victims of a 

•^ On an old volume, a commentary ofi the Psalms, we find the 
following note : 

Decemb. y® 29th 1685 
Then was this Booke & y^ other 
two partes belonging to itt 
Lent to Mr Cannon by mee 

Henry Darnall. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. lOI 

cruel imprisonment, accompanied with gross insults and 
indecent taunts, in consequence of his cool and inflexible 
refusal to sanction the iniquitous proceeding of Col. 
Jowles and the other leaders of the Revolution." The 
spirit of Michael Taney will soon be learned when we 
say that he was accustomed to make his spiritual reading 
out of Rodriguez. The old volume he used is in the 
Newtown library and bears his name. 

The success of the Revolution was the destruction of 
the hopes of St. Mary's. 

Having glanced at the periods preceding, and immed- 
iately following, the Protestant Revolution of 1689, we 
can more easily form some conception of the sufferings 
and trials of the missionaries in Maryland. What they 
had to endure from the cruelty and enmity of Coode 
who considered them the chief cause of the opposition 
he met with, and the strongest enemies of the Protestant 
religion, can without difficulty be fancied. In the 
Annual Letters, 1685-1690, we find the following: 
'' Our missions in the West Indies of Maryland, and 
indeed of New York underwent the same fate with those 
of England. In the latter (New York) there were only 
two priests, and these were forced in this storm to 
change their residence, as also the Catholic Governor 
himself (Governor Dongan). One of them travelled on 
foot to Maryland, the other, after many perils on the 
sea, having been captured and plundered by Dutch 
pirates, at length arrived safe in France. In Maryland 
great difficulties are suffered. Our Fathers yet remain 
to render what consolation they can to the distressed 
Catholics." 

After the sad and baneful overthrow of the Lord Pro- 



I02 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

prietary's authority the seat of government was removed 
to Annapolis. The Cathohcs were again to be perse- 
cuted, and to be made the victims of a crying injustice. 
The Anghcan Church was established by law in Mary- 
land, and the Catholics were taxed for its support. Those 
who have read and studied the history of the Established 
Church in England and Ireland, can easily understand 
the monstrosity of such an establishment in this country. 
Catholics were obliged to build churches in which they 
would never worship ; they were forced to feed parsons 
whose services they would never use, to support a creed 
which their conscience condemned as false. 

The Brooke family in England, though a few of its 
members unfortunately lost the faith, were distinguished 
during the Penal Days as bold and fervent Catholics. Sir 
Basil Brooke was a loyal son of the Church. Sir Robert 
Brooke, who was knighted in the reign of Queen Mary, 
*'was always zealous in the cause of the Old Religion." 
Through his influence many laws favorable to the Cath- 
olics were passed in the days of Mary. We count at least 
five of the Brooke family in Maryland, all natives of that 
state, who became Fathers of the Society. There were 
two branches of the family at an early date in Maryland. 
Robt. Brooke, the founder of a Protestant settlement in 
Charles county, and whose estate, De la Brooke, joined 
the Fenwick Manor at Cole's Creek, as I learn from an 
old survey, was at the head of one of these branches. At 
the head of the other was Francis Brooke, a Catholic, and 
one who was chosen by the freemen of St. Mary's hun- 
dred to represent them at the Protectant Assembly of 
1650. At that famous Assembly he sat at the council- 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. IO3 

board with Cuthbert Fenwick, Geo. Manners, John Med- 
ley and PhiHp Land, all Catholics like himself. 

Father Robert Brooke was born in Maryland on the 
24th day of October, 1663. He probably made a part of 
his studies at the school opened by the Jesuits in Mary- 
land in 1677. He was certainly one of those young 
Marylanders who distinguished themselves at St. Omer's 
and reflected much credit on their native State. His 
generosity of character is shown by the fact that he en- 
tered the Society in his twenty-first year, at a time when 
the Church in the Colonies was suffering on all sides and 
from every quarter. Stronger in him than the fear of 
pains, privations, and penalties was a desire of his own 
perfection, and a burning zeal for the salvation of souls. 
After having made his Novitiate at Watten and his the- 
ology at Li6ge he returned to Maryland about the year 
1696. The afflicted state of the oppressed Catholics 
must have pained and deeply wounded his priestly heart. 
Just two years before his return, St. Mary's City had lost 
its prestige, and Providence had become the capital — 
Providence, the stronghold of Puritanism. In 17 10 Fa- 
ther Brooke became Superior of the Mission. This was 
then an office of much care and solicitude. It was indeed 
a weighty cross. Among other troubles he had much, 
very much, to suffer from Protestant intolerance. He 
was tried for saying Mass at the Chapel at St. Mary's 
City during Court time. Governor Seymour severely 
reprimanded him, and warned him under heavy penalties 
not to repeat the offence. The Sheriff of St. Mary's 
County was ordered to lock up the chapel and to keep 
the key in his possession. After many trials Father 
Brooke died at Newtown on the i8th of July, 17 14, aged 



104 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

fifty-one years. He is called a '' worthy Father " by 
Oliver. 

Richard Molyneux was born in London in 1696. He 
was a missioner at Gateshead in 1724. Eleven years 
afterwards he was sent to Maryland, and became its Su- 
perior in 1736. He left Maryland in 1749, and was for a 
time Chaplain at Marnhull (Hussey family), thence re- 
moved to Bonham, county Wilts, where he died in 1766. 
He was then Rector of the Residence of St. Thomas, of 
Canterbury. 

Father George Hunter was born in Northumberland 
in 171 3. He entered the Society in 1730. In 1747 he 
was sent on the Maryland Mission, and returned to Eng- 
land in 1756. In 1759 he was again sent to Maryland. 
Father Hunter was for a long time Superior of the Mis- 
sion. In 1769 he went to Canada, and thence to Eng- 
land again. Returning to Maryland, he died at St. 
Thomas' Manor, Charles County, on the ist of August, 
1779, and was buried by the side of Fathers Kingdom 
and Leonard. 

Father Hunter was noted as a spiritual director, and 
gave many retreats at Newtown, St. Inigoes and St. 
Thomas'. It is said that two angels once took him on 
a sick-call, and rowed him in a boat across the Potomac. 
His vigils and fastings were extraordinary. He kept 
ward over all his senses, and did as much as he could to 
keep himself in recollection of the Divine Presence. 

The following pious lines are taken from his diary : 
" Constant recollection and ever keeping ourselves in the 
presence of God, having our God constantly as a specta- 
tor of all our actions, as in reality He is, are in some 
sense the only means to a virtuous course of life. At 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 10$ 

least it is certain that we cannot arrive at any degree of 
perfection, or be in any degree acceptable and agreeable 
to our Divine Master, without this uninterrupted recol- 
lection of spirit, this uninterrupted sanctifying presence 
of God." 

Father Henry Poulton labored zealously for some 
time at Newtown. This good religious belonged to a 
family distinguished alike in Church and State. No less 
than twelve of his kinsmen enrolled themselves under the 
standard of St. Ignatius. His ancestors were gallant 
knights who came from Normandy in the reign of Will- 
iam the Conqueror. One of his blood was Thomas 
Poulton, Bishop of Worcester, another was Philip Poul- 
ton, Archdeacon of Gloucester. John Poulton of Des- 
borough married Jane, daughter and heiress of Richard, 
Lord of Desborough. It is indeed extremely probable 
that had it not been for their attachment to the faith they 
professed, some of the members of this branch of the 
family would have been advanced to high honors ; for in 
addition to being one of the oldest families in the king- 
dom — descended, according to a pedigree in the College 
of Arms, from old Norman Princes — the family estates 
were very extensive, comprising, in addition to the lord- 
ship of Desborough and other less important possessions, 
manors and lands in Cransley, Kelmarsh, Broughton, 
and Hargrave. The Poultons of Desborough were 
staunch Catholics. At the commencement of the Civil 
War they ranged themselves on the side of Charles I., 
although in his reign, as well as in the reign of James I., 
they suffered severely for their attachment to their reli- 
gion, as a reference to the State Papers of those days 
abundantly testifies. They were indeed supposed to have 



I06 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

been. implicated in the Gunpowder Plot; and to this day 
a cottage at Desborough is shown as the place where 
this nefarious scheme was concocted. Concocted at 
Desborough, and at the house of a tenant of John Poul- 
ton, it may have been ; but that he was privy thereto 
w^as disproved by his subsequent conduct in sacrificing 
his fortune, and venturing his life in defence of his sov- 
ereign. As has been said, no family in England suffered 
more on account of religion and loyalty. In the reigns 
of James I., and of Charles I., their estates were sequest- 
ered, and they themselves repeatedly fined ; notwithstand- 
ing which, throughout the Civil War, they (with perhaps 
one notable exception) fought for their King, barely 
escaping with their lives. At the Restoration in 1661 it 
might therefore naturally have been supposed that such 
devoted loyalty as was shown by the Desborough Poul- 
tons would have met with some sort of recognition, or 
at least that they would have been free from further per- 
secutions. This, however, was not the case, and under 
such circumstances as those herein briefly described, the 
wonder is, not that the family estates at last passed into 
other hands, but that they remained in the possession of 
the same family — from father to son — for so long a 
period as three hundred and seventy-five years. 

The Poultons were connected by marriage with the 
Palmers, Thimelbys, Coniers, and many other families 
of influence and position of the same faith as themselves. 
Giles Poulton, the yougest son of Giles Poulton of Des- 
borough, married Alice, elder daughter and co-heiress 
of Thomas More, of Burton, in the parish of Bucking- 
ham, of the same family as the martyred Lord Chan- 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. IO7 

cellor, Sir Thomas More. Of this marriage was born 
Ferdinando Poulton, the eminent lawyer. 

Father Henry Poulton was the son of Ferdinand Poul- 
ton, of Desborough, Esq., and Juliana, daughter of Rob- 
ert Garter, of the County of Northampton. He was 
born in Northamptonshire, in 1679. While still young 
he was sent to St, Omer's College, where he made his 
humanity studies. This college was one of the most 
celebrated of all the schools opened during the Penal 
Days for the instruction of the Catholic youth of the 
British Empire who were denied the rights of education 
at home. To it flocked the scions of the noblest Cath- 
olic families of England and Ireland. In the streets of 
the old town of St. Omer could be seen some of the no- 
blest and bravest of the defenders of the faith in these 
countries. Besides the secular college for the education 
of youth there were at St. Omer a college for students 
preparing for the priesthood and destined for the English 
mission, a house for Irish students, and, likewise, a Jesuit 
one, destined for members of the Society alone. We may 
rest assured that young Poulton profited by his stay at 
St. Omer's. We feel satisfied that he often felt his heart 
inflamed with love for the old religion when he heard -in 
his foreign home of her terrible sufferings, when he was 
exhorted by confessors and exiles for the faith of his 
forefathers to love her with his whole heart, and, if nec- 
essary, to shed his blood for her holy cause. ** In the 
College of St. 0.mer,'' says an old Protestant writer. '' a 
city in the Archduke's country, there be one hundred and 
forty scholars, most of them gentlemen's sons of great 
worship. And I have heard say for a truth amongst 
those there be not six that ever were at any of our 



I08 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

churches in England, and many of them be about twenty 
years of age." The reader will here recall the fact that 
by one of the Penal Laws all were obliged to appear 
publicly at the services of the English Established 
Church. The violation of this law was the cause of the 
complaint made by the bigoted writer just cited. 

As Henry Poulton advanced in years and knowledge 
so also did he advance in piety. Before having tasted of 
the false pleasures of the w^orld he learned to despise 
them. Just when he had attained the strength and years 
of manhood he heard the low, sweet voice of the Spirit 
of Love calling him to a life of perfection. His generous 
soul yielded to grace, and he put on the poor habit of 
the sons of St. Ignatius. His choice of a state of life, 
when we recall the mission of death before him in Eng- 
land, must be considered in every respect heroic. No 
doubt he longed in his soul for the fate of the gentle 
Robert Southwell, for the fate of him who was allied to 
him by noble blood. Sir Thomas More. 

After Father Poulton's studies and ordination he re- 
turned to England. But we believe he was not allowed 
to remain long in that country for we soon find him en- 
gaged on the Maryland Mission. Of the missionary 
labors of Father Poulton we have found no record. But 
we can easily imagine with what zeal he labored when 
we call to mind the sacrifices he made on entering 
religion, the careful training he had received in fervent 
St. Omer's, and the generosity with which he had left 
his friends and his native land far behind him. God saw 
fit not to prolong his trials in Maryland, for being ripe 
for heaven, He called him to receive his eternal inherit- 
ance on the 27th of September, 171 2. He died in the 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. IO9 

flower of his age at the Newtown Station. He sleeps 
with those good Fathers above whose graves arise no 
tomb, whose very epitaphs have been left unwritten. Still, 
in the Desborough Church, the church of his ancestors, 
there stood a monument which bore the following in- 
scription : " Sacred to the memory of the honorable 
family of the Poultons, who for fourteen generations 
were lords of this town of Desburgh or Desborough. 
Descended from princely, most noble, illustrious and 
holy progenitors of this kingdom. Besides this lordship 
they possessed manors and lands in Cransley, Kelmarsh, 
Broughton, and Hargrave, in this county." 

Father Poulton had three brothers in the Society, 
namely, Charles, Thomas, and Giles, Jun. The latter 
held several important positions in the Jesuit Order, and 
was usually called, on account of his virtues and meek- 
ness of character, " The Angel." 

Father Thomas, like Henry, was sent at an early age 
to St. Omer's. There he found a vocation to religion. 
Having completed his nineteenth year he entered a Jesuit 
Novitiate. He was afterwards engaged in different offices 
in St. Omer's. In 1730 we find him acting as Prefect at 
that College. Having left St. Omer he proceeded to the 
Eternal City. It was there that he made his solemn 
Profession of the four vows. This was in 1734. Four 
years later on he was sent to Maryland to work in that 
field in which his brother had found an early grave. He 
labored successfully for the good of souls in Charles, 
Cecil, and St. Mary's Counties. He was Superior of the 
Mission for some years. In 1746 he had twelve Fathers 
and one lay-brother to assist him. In January, 1749, he 
sank from his labors at Newtown. His body was laid 



I lO OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

beside that of his cherished brother, Henry. '' Even in 
death they were not divided." There is something pa- 
thetic in the thought of these worthy scions of an ancient, 
princely family reposing side by side in the little grave- 
yard of Newtown. 

Nearly every country in Europe had at one time or 
another one of its missionaries in Southern Maryland. 
England, Ireland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, 
and Holland sent some of their children to work in that 
chosen vineyard of the Lord. Wales, too, gave it one of 
her brave sons in the person of Fr. Francis Floyd. This 
devoted missionary was born in the land of St. David on 
the 17th of November, 1692. He entered the Society in 
his eighteenth year, the day being the 7th of September. 
He was sent on the Maryland Mission in 1724. Four 
years later, being distinguished by learning and virtue, 
he was professed of the four vows. He labored zealously 
for some time at Newtown, where he died on the 13th of 
November, 1729, at the age of thirty-seven. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. Ill 



CHAPTER VII. 



Father Thomas Hodgson was a native of Yorkshire, 
England, and was born on the 2d of November, 1682. 
He became a Jesuit September 3d, 1703, and was sent on 
the Maryland Mission in 171 1. He departed this life 
December 14th, 1726. 

Father John Bennet, alias or vere Gosling, was a native 
of London, and was born March 17th, 1692. He entered 
the Society of Jesus September 7th, 17 10. He arrived 
in Maryland about the year 1724, and labored in that 
Mission for some years. About the year 1750 he was a 
missioner at Lytham, County Lancaster. He died at 
Highfield, near Wigan, April 2d, 175 I, at the age of fifty- 
nine. 

Father Joseph or Josiah Greaton was born in London 
on the 2d of February, 1679. On July the 5th, 1708, he 
entered a Jesuit Novitiate. According to a paper in the 
Jesuit Archives he w^as sent to Maryland in 172 1. '' Oli- 
ver calls Father Greaton the Apostle of Pennsylvania, as 
he toiled in that State for nearly twenty years before 
going to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He was the 
founder of Catholicity in Philadelphia ; at first his con- 
gregation numbered eleven persons. This is said on the 
authority of Mr. Westcott. St. Joseph's Church, together 
with the residence in Willing's Alley, was built by Father 
Greaton in 1733." 



112 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Archbishop Carroll thus refers to Father Greaton : 
'' About the year 1730, or rather later, Father Greaton, a 
Jesuit (for none but Jesuits had yet ventured into the 
English Colonies), went from Maryland to Philadelphia, 
and laid the foundations of that congregation, now so 
flourishing ; he lived there till the year 1750, long before 
which he had succeeded in building the old chapel, 
which is still contiguous to the presbytery of that town, 
and in assembling a numerous congregation which, at 
his first going thither, did not consist of more than ten 
or twelve persons. I remember to have seen this vener- 
able man at the head of his flock in 1748." 

The first Jesuits who labored in Pennsylvania came 
from the Maryland Mission. Though there was much 
work to be done on the banks of the Patuxent, Potomac, 
and Elk Rivers, still the missionaries at Newtown, St. 
Inigoes, and especially Bohemia, a little later on, could 
not neglect altogether the souls of those of the House- 
hold of Faith who dwelt on the shores of the Delaware 
and on the wooded mountains of Penn's Plantation. 
Though no Proprietary invited them, though no Gov- 
ernor encouraged them, still the Jesuits of Maryland 
often penetrated the stronghold of Quakerism, disguised 
and in secret, and ministered to the wants of the few 
scattered Catholics of Pennsylvania, who had as yet no 
resident priest among them. During the few short years 
that New York possessed English Jesuits, it is almost 
certain that the Philadelphia Catholics were visited by 
missionaries from the banks of the Hudson. But it was 
years after the death of Harvey, Harrison, and Gage that 
the first Jesuit residence was built in the City of Brotherly 
Love. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. II 3 

*' Previous to the year 1733," says an old paper before 
me, ^*the few Catholics who then resided in Philadelphia, 
held meetings for religious worship in a private dwelling; 
for the public exercise of the Catholic religion was not 
permitted, according to the laws of England, which pre- 
vailed in America at that epoch. In the above year, the 
Rev. Mr. Greaton, a priest of the Order of Jesuits, pur- 
chased lots near Fourth Street, between Walnut and 
Willing's Alley, and erected thereon a small chapel, ded- 
icated to St. Joseph, which has since been enlarged." 

We lately found an interesting paper relating to the 
first visit of Father Joseph Greaton to Philadelphia. On 
this paper we find the following note : '' This I have 
heard from Archbishop Neale, the 4th of December, 
1815, the first day he was Archbishop of Baltimore.'* 
The document itself is as follows : ^* Mr. Greaton, one 
of the Jesuits of Maryland, being informed that in Phila- 
delphia there was a great number of Catholics, resolved 
to try to establish a mission for their spiritual comfort. 
In order to succeed the better he went first to Lancaster 
where he had an acquaintance by the name of Mr. 
Doyle. The object of his journey was to know from his 
friend the name of some respectable Catholic in Philadel- 
phia, to whom he could address himself, and by whom 
he could be seconded in his laudable exertions to found 
there a mission. Mr. Doyle directed him to an old 
lady, very respectable for her wealth, and still more for 
her attachment to the Catholic Religion. Father 
Greaton on his arrival at Philadelphia presented himself 
dressed like a Quaker to the lady, and after the usual 
compliments, he turned his conversation on the great 
number of sectaries who were in that city. The lady 



114 ^LD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

made a long enumeration of them — Quakers, Presby- 
terians, Lutherans, Church of England members. Baptists, 
etc., etc. The Father then asked her : ' Pray, madam, 
are there here any of those who are called Papists ?' 

' Yes,' she replied, ' there is a good number/ 

' Are you one ?' asked the Father. 

The lady stopped a little, and then acknowledged that 
she was. 

* I am one too,' added the priest. 

This gave rise to many other questions, among which 
was the following : ' Have the Catholics any Church ?' 
The lady answered : ' No, they have none/ 

* Do you think that they would be glad to have one ?' 
continued Father Greaton. 

* Most certainly, sir, but the great difficulty is to find a 
priest/ 

' Are there no priests in America ?' 

* Yes, there are some in Maryland, but it would be 
impossible to get priests from that quarter/ 

* No, not impossible,' said the missionary, ' I myself 
am one at your service/ 

' Is it true !' asked the lady with warm interest, ' is it 
true that you are a priest !' 

* Yes, madam, I assure you I am a priest/ 

" The good lady could not contain her joy to see after 
so many years a Catholic priest, and like the Samaritan 
woman who, having found our Lord Jesus Christ, ran to 
announce it to the citizens of Samaria, she went through 
the neighborhood and invited her Catholic acquaintances 
to come and see a Catholic priest in her house. This 
was soon filled with Catholics, for the most part Ger- 
mans. Then Father Greaton began to expose to them 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. II5 

the object of his journey. At that very meeting a sub- 
scription was opened to raise sufificient funds to buy lots, 
and build a Catholic church. All willingly contributed 
to this good work. They bought lots and a house of 
their hostess, who acted in a very generous manner." 

Father Greaton died on the 19th of August, 1753. 
From an old catalogue I learn that Father John Lewis 
'' officiated at his funeral." 

Father Thomas Mansell, alias Harding, was born in 
Oxfordshire in the year 1669. Having studied human- 
ities at St. Omer's College, he entered the Jesuit Order 
on the 7th of September, 1686. In 1700, having been 
ordained priest some time previous, he was sent on the 
Maryland Mission. Father Mansell's name is closely 
interwoven with the history of the ^mission of Bohemia, 
Cecil County, Md. The following passages from an 
able article on Bohemia, in the Woodstock Letters, will 
not, therefore, be out of place : 

The Fathers of St. Mary's were ever on the alert to 
seize any opportunity of spreading the Gospel. Re- 
strained by unjust laws which, on occasions, were 
almost as inflexible as those of the penal code in 
England, they nevertheless were untiring in their efforts 
in the midst of hardships and dangers. Their bitter foes 
of the Established Church, the Puritans no less hostile, 
false brethren, who, be it said, were by God's grace, very 
few, might pass still severer laws against the faith, but 
they could not quench the zeal of the sons of St. 
Ignatius. Crippled in resources, doubly taxed to 
support the Established Church and the government, 
the Fathers found means to keep alive their enterprises, 
and to bring the word to many souls in danger of losing 



Il6 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

the faith. In 1704, Father'William Hunter, the Superior 
of the Maryland Mission, determined to found a new 
centre of apostolic work in Cecil County, on a part of 
what was called Bohemia Manor. He had been led to 
take this step by the needs of some Irish families, who 
had settled there, of whom some unhappily had fallen 
into heresy. Catholics from St. Mary's County or from 
England, who had also taken up their abode near 
Bohemia, claimed the attention of the Superior ; and he 
was most willing to help them, though at the time there 
were but nine Fathers in the Mission which embraced 
all the counties then formed on the Western Shore of 
the State. No doubt, the faithful in Cecil County had 
been visited now and then by the Jesuits of St. Mary's 
County. But the Indian tribes offered special attractions 
to the zealous missionaries. 

Father Thomas Mansell was chosen to undertake the 
work. The Superior had made a good choice. Father 
Mansell was a man of learning, having just made his 
profession in February of this year (1704) ; he was well 
acquainted with the Mission, in which he had labored 
for four years, and knew the toil and sacrifice expected 
of him. Moreover, great zeal for souls, in which he 
imitated his brother. Father William, and the vigor of 
age attracted the eyes of the Superior towards him. 
Leaving St. Mary's in 1704, Father Mansell sailed to the 
Chesapeake and up this inland sea to Elk River, turning 
a few miles above its mouth into Bohemia River. A 
short sail now brought him to Little Bohemia creek, and 
to the landing not far from the present residence. Here 
he founded the first Mission for the Eastern Shore of the 
State. '' It is highly probable," says Mr. Johnston, 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. I I7 

*' that he brought with him the ancient cross, which has 
been at Bohemia ever since. This cross is about five 
feet high and is said to have been brought to St. Mary's 
by the first settlers who came there fi*om England. It is 
made of wrought iron and certainly looks ancient 
enough to have been brought over by the Pilgrims, who 
came in the Ark and the Dove'' 

Father Mansell must have had his dwelling in what is 
now the kitchen of the residence. The first chapel was 
close by ; it was torn down and enlarged at the end of 
the last century. 

Oliver says that Father Mansell " zealously cultivated 
the Maryland Mission until his death, on the i8th of 
March, 1724." 

The name of Peter Atwood is written on the pages of 
several books in the Newtown Library. Father Atwood 
came from Worcestershire, England. He was born in 
1682, on the 1 8th of October. His mother was Wini- 
fred Petre, of Belhouse, near Kelvedon, the seat of the 
Stanford Rivers branch of the Petre family. On his 
mother's side he was of noble descent, and was con- 
nected not only with some of the most distinguished 
Priests of England, but also with several illustrious 
members of the laity who suffered for the Catholic Faith 
in the black Tower of London. His father was George 
Atwood of Beverie, near Worcester. The Atwoods 
suffered much on account of their constancy in the 
Faith. One of them, a Dominican priest, was put upon 
the hurdle because he held fast to the doctrine handed 
down from the Apostles. 

Our young missionary made his humanities at St. 
Omer's College. Being called to a religious life he 



Il8 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

entered the Society in September, 1703. He rhade his 
novitiate amid the deep solitude that reigned around the 
Watten House. No doubt he was one of those novices 
who gave instructions to the children of the neighboring 
rural districts. About the time that he was making his 
theological studies at Liege we learn that great zeal for 
the salvation of souls animated the students in that city. 
Some of them spent all their free time in instructing and 
preparing for confession many heretical English, Irish, 
and Scotch soldiers, and would bring them when ready 
to a confessor in the Church. Before he left, it is said, 
that the Fathers devoted their chief care to the sick and 
wounded English soldiers, besides visiting those in good 
health, of whom they brought many into the Church, 
and assisted numbers at death, while quartered here. 
Many general confessions were heard, but the greatest 
praise and highest success of the College of Liege was 
its own progress towards perfection, in peace, union, 
fervor, and regular religious observance, combined with 
the care, labor, and industry of the professors towards 
all. 

Father Atwood left the quiet and peace of his Liege 
room and entered upon his missionary life in Maryland 
in 171 1. He labored zealously in Charles County, and 
also in Cecil County, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. 
He seems to have succeeded Father Thomas Mansell, as 
Superior of Bohemia Manor. *' In 1732," writes Mr. 
Johnston in his History of Cecil County, '' Peter Atwood, 
who is then said to be of St. Mary's County, purchased 
another tract of land called 'Askmore,' from Vachel 
Denton. This tract was supposed to contain 550 acres, 
and had been granted to John Browning and Henry 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. II9 

Denton in 1668. Denton claimed it by right of sur- 
vivorship, and from him it descended to his son, Vachel 
Denton, who as before stated, sold it to Atwood/' 

The Annual Letter for 1728, informs us that Father 
Atwood was then Superior of the Mission with eleven 
Fathers and three lay-brothers to assist him. The 
Fathers were scattered throughout an immense tract of 
country and strenuously labored in protecting and 
propagating the Catholic Faith. The temporal coadjutors 
attended to domestic affairs, and the cultivation of the 
land, the product of w^hich supported the missioners. 
Besides the land, there was no other source of support 
belonging to the mission. On this subject Arch- 
bishop Carroll wrote : " Catholics contributed nothing 
to the support of Religion or its ministers; the whole 
charge of its maintenance, of furnishing the altars, of 
traveling expenses, fell on the priests themselves ; and 
no compensation was ever offered for any service per- 
formed by them ; nor did they require any, so long as 
the produce of their lands was sufficient to answer their 
demands. But it must have been foreseen, that if 
religion should make considerable progress, this could 
not always be the case.'' 

During Father Atwood's missionary life in Maryland 
many cruel and despotic laws were made in that 
Province against all professing the Catholic Faith. 
;£'ioo reward was offered to any one who should 
** apprehend and take a Popish Bishop, Priest or Jesuit, 
and prosecute him until convicted of saying Mass, or of 
exercising any other part of the office or function of a 
Popish Bishop or Priest." Catholics were forbidden the 
rights of education at home, and they were not allowed 



120 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

under heavy penalties to send their children to the 
Catholic schools of the Old Continent. One of the 
stanzas in the poem of Thomas Davis on the Penal 
Days in Ireland, with very slight modification, would 
naturally find a place here : 

" They bribed the flock, they bribed the son, 
To sell the priest and rob the sire ; 
Their dogs were taught ahke to run 
Upon the scent of wolf and friar. 
Among the poor. 
Or on the moor, 
Were hid the pious and the true." 

So galling were the Penal enactments enforced in Fa- 
ther Atwood's days that he and a great number of 
prominent Catholic gentlemen conceived the plan of 
flying from persecution to one of the French settlements. 
This was what their fathers had done before them when 
they sailed away from England, when they hastily passed 
down by the Lizzard Rocks on the coast of their native 
land. *' Charles Carroll and his brother James were at 
the head of the movement, and among those who in- 
tended to join it we find the names of Henry Darnall, 
Henry Darnall, Jr., William Diggs, John Diggs, Benja- 
min Hall, Clement Hall, William Fitz Redmond, Henry 
Wharton, Charles Diggs, Major Nicholas Sewell, and 
Richard Bennett.'^ 

On Christmas Day, 1734, Father Atwood, being Su- 
perior of the Mission, while notes of gladness filled the 
earth, and our churches, in Catholic countries, at least, 
rang with the " Gloria in Excelsis,'' yielded up his faith- 
ful soul to God in one of the chambers of the Newtown 
Manor. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 121 

On the 5th of January of the same year, one of the 
young Fathers died on the Maryland Mission, and very 
probably at Newtown. This was Father John Fleetwood.. 
This Father was a native of London, and was born in 
the year 1703. He was, perhaps, one of the Fleetwoods 
of Drury Lane. This was the favorite haunt of the 
Catholics during the Penal Times. In a very old work 
I find : *' The Provincial of the English Jesuits often 
stayed at Mrs. Fleetwood's- house, in Drury Lane." 

After his priesthood our youthful missionary labored 
with courage and zeal at Broughton Hall, County York, 
England. This was the seat of the ancient family of 
Tempest, and was a chaplaincy and mission of the Resi- 
dence of St. Michael the Archangel. We may easily 
imagine how Broughton Hall was watched by spies, and 
considered a dangerous post for a missionary, when we 
remember that Father Nicholas Tempest had been one 
of Gates' victims. 

Father John was probably the brother of Father Wal- 
ter Fleetwood, a distinguished English missionary, and 
one whom we find at Liege in the time of Father Jenkins 
and others of the Maryland Fathers. Father Walter 
Fleetwood " is named in a curious old pamphlet, entitled 
The Present State of Popery m England (1733), as having 
kept the Catholic school at Twyford, Hants, where Pope, 
the poet, passed some part of his youth. The school is 
represented as containing upwards of one hundred schol- 
ars at that time (1733), and was chiefly under the care and 
direction of one Father Fleetwood. Dr. Husenbeth 
states that this ' Fleetwood left Twyford about the year 
1732, and, after living a short time at Paynsley, went to 



122 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Li6ge, and became a Jesuit.' * He was, I presume, of the 
Fleetwood family of Calwich, County Stafford.' " 

Father John Fleetwood came to Maryland in 1733. 
The days of his toils and pains were not long on that 
mission. He had not labored many months here before 
God in His Infinite Wisdom saw fit to call him to receive 
his eternal reward. Fleetwood Joannes is inscribed on 
one of the Newtown Library books. In a former chap- 
ter we said that most of the missionaries were distin- 
guished students. Is it not a touching fact that the only 
epitaphs written for them were written by their own 
hands when they wrote their names upon the books they 
loved and studied in their youth? In the library, and 
not on marble monuments in the graveyard, we find the 
names of the missionaries written. 

One hundred years after the Act of Toleration w^as 
passed a young Irish Jesuit, Father James Carroll, came 
to Maryland to fulfil in part the Mission of the Irish 
race. With all the zeal of a generous and faithful soul 
who had seen the sufferings of Mother Church both in 
England and in Ireland, he set out upon his missionary 
labors. With the fire and eloquence of an apostle he 
preached the sublime doctrine of "Jesus, and Him Cru- 
cified." But he did not last long. After about seven 
years on the Maryland Mission he had a holy end at 
Newtown. 

About two years before Father Carroll's death he was 
joined in his labors by Father Michael Murphy, also a 
native of Ireland. This Father was born on the i8th of 
September, 1725. Having made a great part of his 
studies in the *' Island of Saints and Doctors," and hav- 
ing witnessed the desecration and profanation of sacred 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 123 

vessels and holy altars ; having seen the pillage and the 
burning of grey abbeys and ivied convents, he left his 
native land and became a member of the English Prov- 
ince. This was on the 7th day of September, 1745. On 
the very same day, and probably at the same moment, 
another young Irish student entered the Novitiate at 
Watten. This youth's name was John Butler. Father 
John Butler, who became, on the death of his brother, 
the tenth Lord Cahir, was the son of Thomas, eighth 
Lord Cahir, and his wife Frances, daughter of Sir Theo- 
bald Butler. He was born on the 8th of August, 1727, 
and received his education at St. Omer's. After his or- 
dination he took charge of the Mission of Hereford. In 
1778 he was almost universally nominated by the Pre- 
lates of Ireland to fill the vacant See of Limerick, and 
the nomination was actually confirmed by the Holy See, 
and the bulls had arrived in Ireland; but Father Butler, 
who had protested from the first against the violence 
done to his humility and the retirement he so much 
loved, resolutely refused to accept the dignity, and died 
in his holy obscurity at Hereford. 

Nine years after his entrance into the Society Father 
Murphy was sent on the Maryland Mission. On July 
the 8th, 1759, he peacefully expired at the Newtown 
Manor. His missionary life though brief, was very suc- 
cessful, and full of merit. 

From the Newtown Note-Book I learn that Father 
Wappeler was oru Britton's Neck in May, 1744. Wil- 
helm Wappeler was a native of Numan Sigmaringen, 
Westphalia, and was the worthy uncle of the Rev. Her- 
man Kemper, '' one of the ablest scholars and most val- 
uable members of the Fnglish Province." Wappeler was 



j24 oi,n CATHOLIC mArvi.ani) and 

born January the 22d, 171 1. Twenty-seven years after 
he assumed the habit of St. Ignatius. 

'' In 1741," says a distinguished writer, ''two German 
Jesuits were sent to Pennsylvania for the instruction and 
conversion of German emigrants, who from many parts 
of Germany had come into that Province. Under great 
hardships and poverty they began their laborious under- 
taking, which has since been followed by great benedic- 
tions. Their names were Father Schneider, from Bavaria, 
and Father Wappeler, from the Lower Rhine. They 
were both men of much learning and unbounded zeal. 
Mr. Schneider, moreover, was a person of great dex- 
terity in business, consummate prudence, and undaunted 
magnanimity. Mr. Wappeler having remained about 
eight years in America, and converted and reclaimed 
many to the Faith of Christ, was forced by bad health to 
return to Europe. He was the person who made the 
.first settlement of the place called Conewago." 

The first Catholic Church built at Conewago is thus 
described by a recent writer : ** ]t was a small log church 
with two rooms attached, in or near the site of the pres- 
ent edifice. The style of the architecture gave the build- 
ing the appearance of a private dwelling ; and it was 
chosen to conform to and not to violate the letter, if not 
the spirit of the stringent Penal Laws then in force in 
the colonies." 

In 1754, and for some years later, we find Father 
Wappeler as Prefect of St. Omer's College. He after- 
wards labored on the English Mission in the Yorkshire 
District and at Liverpool. He spent some time at Ghent 
and Bruges. He died in the latter city, and was there 
interred amid the ringing of '' sweet cathedral bells/' 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 125 

On his death Bishop Carroll wrote : " Father Wappeler's 
candor and artless disposition of heart always endeared 
him to me." 

Father Wappeler had been at Ghent during the sup- 
pression of the College in 1773, and was examined before 
the Commissioners. In the Life of St. Thomas of Here- 
ford, written by Father Constantine Susysken, the Bol- 
landist, we find a letter of this Father, on '' the Relick 
of St. Thomas." As many of the missionaries of Mary- 
land spent some time in Ghent before beginning their 
apostolate in the New World, it may be interesting to 
the reader to learn something about the Jesuit house 
there. It is the writer's impression that this building still 
stands, and was pointed out to him some few years past. 

'* The (English) House of the Third Probation was 
opened about the middle of the month of August, 1621 
(at Ghent). It was founded by the pious bounty of Anne 
Dacre, Countess of Arundel and Surrey, a warm and 
sincere friend of the Society of Jesus. She was widow 
of Philip, Earl of Arundel, who died in the Tower of 
London, October 19th, 1595, a martyr for the Catholic 
Faith, after an imprisonment of ten years and a half, not 
without suspicion of having been poisoned. Hither the 
veterans often retired to prepare themselves for the last 
passage into eternity. Dodd observes : ' About these 
times also, in 1622, the Jesuits purchased a house in 
Ghent, which was to be a place of residence for such of 
their Fathers as were disabled either through age or in- 
firmity, or any other way rendered unserviceable for the 
mission.' " 

The principal object, however, of the College, was for 



126 



OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 



the use of the Fathers'^ making their third year's pro- 
bation, after completing their studies and course of teach- 
ing, before the solemn professions of the last vows of 
religion. 

In 1767-8 the Novitiate, or House of First Probation, 
was removed from Watten to Ghent, which then became 
the House of the First and Third Year's Probation. 

At the suppression in 1773 it shared in the fate of the 
other Continental Colleges. 

^' In a leUer from Ghent for 1624, we find: " The Fathers in the 
third year's probation added to oiher duties (as in former years) 
the hearing the confessions of English, Irish, and Scotch soldiers, 
whether of those escaped from Holland, or of the Spanish auxil- 
iary camp in the neighborhood. About ten English gentlemen, 
some of them of high families, made retreats here with much fruit, 
especially in the case of three who decided upon leaving the world 
and entering upon a religious life." 




ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 12/ 



CHAPTER VIII. 



It seems likely that Father Robert Harding spent 
some time at Newtown. At all events, I found his name 
on one of the books there. Father Harding was born 
on the 6th of October, 1701. Having pursued his 
studies in one of the English Colleges on the Continent 
he caught the flame of the apostolic fire that burned and 
glowed around him. In his twenty-first year he became 
a fervent novice of the Society of Jesus. About eleven 
years afterwards he was sent on the Maryland Mission. 
He became distinguished as a missionary in Pennsyl- 
vania. He succeeded Father Greaton as Pastor of the 
old church in Philadelphia. Under his patronage, and 
through his exertions, St. Mary's Church was built. He 
was untiring in his labors in behalf of his little flock. 
*^ In the meanwhile," says a Philadelphia writer, '' Father 
Harding was not idle at old St. Joseph's. He instructed 
the faithful and buried his beloved dead in the little 
* God's Acre ' west of the Church, whose humble mounds 
were shaded by two gigantic Walnut trees. It was 
rather the increasing demand for resting places for those 
who ' sleep in the Lord,' than the increased number of 
those ' fighting the combat ' that induced Father Hard- 
ing, in 1763, to employ the money of Father Greaton in 
purchasing ' St. Mary's Burying Ground ' — and building 
that Church, which, in 18 10, was enlarged to its present 



128 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

noble dimensions. Father Harding also assisted Father 
Farmer in his missionary duties, and so arduous were 
his labors that he died at St. Joseph's, Philadelphia, on 
the 1st of September, 1771, beloved by all and keenly, 
bitterly, and affectionately remembered." 

Father Harding certainly' labored at St. Thomas, 
Charles County, and likewise in Prince George's, Mary- 
land. Archbishop Carroll refers to Father Harding as 
one "whose memory remains in great veneration." 

The following are the opening words in Mr Harding's 
Will : '' First, I bequeath my soul to God, hoping 
through the infinite merits of our only Saviour Jesus 
Christ, to obtain life everlasting, and my body to be 
decently interred." 

In the Newtown Library I find on a copy of the New 
Testament, published in 1582 — ''Jacobus Breadnall, 
1769, Societatis Jesu." Father Breadnall was born on 
the 8th of April, 17 18. In his twenty-first year he en- 
tered the Society. He was enrolled among the Professed 
Fathers eighteen years later on. In 1749 he was at St. 
Thomas'. From the very foundation of the Maryland 
Mission up to the present time it has been customary for 
the Fathers to say Mass in private houses. This is to 
enable all, even those persons who live at a great distance 
from any church, to assist at the Holy Sacrifice. In 
times of persecution, when all the churches were closed, 
or in the hands of our enemies, of course it was abso- 
lutely necessary, if ^the people were to hear Mass at all, 
that the missionaries should celebrate in some farm- 
house or manor. This they usually did. What a 
beautiful picture it is to see the priest in some neat little 
room, surrounded by a band of pious and faithful wor- 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 1 29 

shippers, offering up the Immaculate Lamb to the 
greater glory of God, and for the atonement of the sins 
of mankind. It seems that in Father Breadnall's time 
this pious practice of celebrating in private houses was 
forbidden by the bigots of Maryland. Indeed, we read 
that he was indicted for saying Mass in this manner. 
He was also tried for endeavoring " to bring over a non- 
juror person to the Romish persuasion." With regard 
to the charge of saying Mass he was acquitted, as he 
proved that he was allowed to offer up the Holy Sacri- 
fice '* by an order issued by her Majesty, Queen Anne, 
dated at Whitehall, January 3d, 1705-6." As the second 
charge was not proved, he was set free. Father Bread- 
nail died in Maryland on the 9th of April, 1772. 

Father John Lewis* was a native of Northamptonshire, 
born September the 19th, 1721. He made his humanity 
studies at the famous College of St. Omer's, that illus- 
trious home of confessors, scholars, and martyrs. On 
September 7th, 1740, he entered the Society at Watten. 
He was professed of the four vows, February 2d, 1758. 
In the same year he was sent to Maryland. He labored 
in different parts of that Mission with great success. In 
1753 he was engaged in missionary work at Bohemia. 
He was at Bohemia also in 1758. In 1765 he labored 

^ During the Revolutionary War, in 1778, the " Geneial Monk,'' 
a British sloop of war, anchored off St. Inigoes, fired a ball through 
the house, which was near killing the Rev. Mr. Lewis, who had 
just left his bed, over which the ball passed. The fracture of the 
wall, produced by the ball in its passage through, may be seen at 
the present day, near the corner of the northwest chamber on the 
first floor. Bishop Fenv^ick. 



130 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

at White Marsh.* In 1769 he was at St. Inigoes. On 
an old and torn sheet of paper we find — '' Appendix to 
y'^ first page." On this paper may be read the following 
address : *' To the Rev*' Mr. John Lewis, at Newtown, in 
St. Mary's County." Near the address we read : '' To 
be put in y^ Post-office at Annapolis and forwarded with 
care and speed." The reason why the letter was sent 
from Annapolis and not from Bohemia is told in the let- 
ter itself in a P. S. : *' You rather send y^ letter to Mr. 
Mosley if you write to me; for if you write by y"^ Post 
y^ letter in all probability will be, intercepted. I have 

reason to suspect it, because they would not let this letter 

* 
go zvith y^ Post, but zvas obliged to take it home again, and. 

to try another channel!' It is evident from the tone of 
the letter that at the precise time it was written Father 
Lewis was Superior. Father Manners begs of him to 
write regarding the business on hand as soon as possible, 
and adds : *' be sure your order shall be punctually ob- 
served, and complied with to a tittle." He reminds 
Father Lewis to write Warwick legibly, otherwise, he 
says, '' y^ letter will go to Frederick Tozun and be put into 
y^ office, where it may lie for half a year, as it happened 
in Mr. Harding's time; for they never will send it except 
they meet with an accidental opportunity." In Father 
Mosley's "Day Book" for 1764, I find the following 
references to Father Lewis:'* 1764, Aug* iith, I arrived 
at Bohemia with Mr. Lewis:" "Aug* 14th, Mr. Lewis 
returned." From the same Book we learn that Father 

^ White Marsh is situated about midway between Annapolis 
and Washington, in Prince George's County, Md. It came into 
the possession of the Society in 1760. It is a place of deep his- 
toric interest. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. I3I 

Lewis was at Bohemia from the 17th of November, 1764 
to the 2 1st of the said month. The following entries by 
Father Lewis are found in Mosley's " Ordo :" '' 5th June, 
1787 : Buried Jenny Parks at St. Joseph's. Eodem die, 
R. Jos. Mosley in y® Chapel. R. L Pace. — J. Lewis." 

From the year 1634 to a date nearly 150 years nearer 
our time, the English Province continued to send learned 
and zealous missionaries to Maryland. Though engaged 
in a continual and deadly fight with error and corruption 
in England, though persecuted and bleeding from every 
pore, still she generously spared some of her tried and 
devoted sons for the arduous and, at times, perilous 
Mission on the borders of the Chesapeake. She sent to 
Maryland apostolic men like White, Altham, Morgan, 
Copley, Sewall, Hartwell, Chamberlain, Casey, Cooper, 
Roels, Carteret, Lawson, O'Reilly, Diderick, De Ritter, 
Geisler, Phillips, Beeston, Brown, Harrison, and Scaris- 
brick. Despite hardships and persecutions, these true 
sons of St. Ignatius heroically kept the Banner of the 
Cross triumphantly waving. While some of them labored 
among the settlers and slaves and red men of the Eastern 
and Western Shores of Maryland, others preached in 
Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York. Their 
motto was — *' To The Greater Glory Of God." They 
preached Jesus and Him Crucified. Like the Crusaders 
of old they cried out in chorus — '' Not to us, O Lord, 
give glory, but to Thy Name." Dwelling in the forests 
with the red men, occupied in the '' quarters " of the poor 
colored slaves, they knew little of the evils in store for 
them. They knew, it is true, that the princes and the 
mighty ones of the earth stood in judgment against 
them. They knew that the French philosophers and 



132 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Jansenists hated them with a relentless hatred. They 
knew that their brothers in France were accused of 
regicide and immorality by Le Pelletier de St. Fargean 
and Chauvelin. They knew that they had bitter ene- 
mies in D'Aranda, Choiseul and Pombal ; in Manuel de 
Roda, Campomanes, Grimaldi, Monino, and the Duke of 
Alva; but in the innocence and purity of their conscience 
they feared not. Judge then of their sorrow when they 
learned of the total suppression of the entire Society 
throughout the world. Picture to yourselves their grief 
when they received the Papal Brief and the following 
letter that came in a small ship from the coast of Eng- 
land : 

'' To Mess^^ the Missioners in Maryland and Pennsyl- 
vania : 
To obey the orders I have received from above, I 
notify to you by this the Breve, of the total dissolution 
of the Society of Jesus ; and send withal a form of de- 
claration of your obedience and submission, to which 
you are all to subscribe as your brethren have done 
here ; and send me back the formula with the subscrip- 
tions of you all, as I am to send them up to Rome. 

Ever Yours, 

Richard Deboren, V. Ap." 
" October 6th, 1773." 

Like true followers of Ignatius they bowed their heads 
in perfect submission. Like their Brethren of Europe, 
of Asia, and of Africa, they bent in reverence before the 
decree of the Vicar of Christ. They urged not their 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 1 33 

innocence ; they pointed not to their labors. They heard 
and obeyed. 

The following note is so pertinent to the present sub- 
ject that I think it well to give it here : 

''The Brief of Suppression was ordered into execution 
in such a way that it was to take effect only when it had 
been communicated by the Bishop to the local Superior 
within his jurisdiction. As the Mission of Maryland 
formed a part of the London District, it devolved upon 
Bishop Challoner to notify Father John Lewis; Superior 
in 1773, of the Suppression. After the dissolution of 
the Society, Father Lewis was appointed Vicar-General, 
and continued to govern the Mission in America for the 
English Bishop, during the seven years of the Revolu- 
tionary struggle. ^ * ^ -H- After the termination of 
the war. Father Lewis was unanimously chosen Superior 
at a meeting of the clergy of the Southern District of 
Maryland, held at Newtown September 23d, 1783. At 
this meeting were present Benedict Neale, Ignatius Mat- 
thews, James Walton, Peter Morris, John Bolton, John 
Boarman, and Augustine Jenkins ; Mr. Matthews col- 
lected also the votes of Benjamin Roels and Leonard 
Neale, who were absent." 

At the time of the Suppression there were twenty 
Fathers working zealously in various parts of the Mis- 
sion. These Fathers w^ere John Ashton, Thomas 
Digges, James Framback, Ferdinand Farmer, Lucas 
Geisler, George Hunter, John Lewis, John Lucas, Mat- 
thias Manners, Ignatius Matthews, Peter Morris, Joseph 
Mosley, Benedict Neale, James Pellentz, Lewis Roels, 
* Bernard Rich (Diderick), J. B. Ritter (de), James Wal- 
ton, John Bolton, and Robert Molyneux. Besides these 



134 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

the Mission had some subjects pursuing their studies in 
Europe at the time of the Suppression. From the Bea- 
dle's Diary, lately published in the Letters and Notices^ 
we learn that on the suppression of the College at Li6ge 
some of the Fathers and scholastics almost immediately 
left that city. Ignatius Brooke left Li^ge on Monday, 
September 27th ; Charles Neale, Francis Beeston, and 
Joseph Boone, September 29th ; Charles Boarman, Sep- 
tember 30th. 

From an old' document we learn that Father Lewis 
died at Bohemia, March 24th, 1788. 

Father Joseph Mosley, alias Joseph Framback, was 
the brother of Father Michael, who was for some time 
Superior of the Residence of St. Winifred, and who died 
at Holy Well. He was born in Lincolnshire, in 1730, 
and studied his humanities at St. Omer's College. He 
entered the Society in his eighteenth year. Early in 1759 
he was a missioner at Bromley, in the College of the 
Holy Apostles. Though the Collectanea says he was 
sent to Maryland about 1764, we know from unquestion- 
able sources that he came here at least five years before 
that time. From his own writings I know that he spent 
the Easter of 1759 at St. Joseph's Forest in Maryland. 
In his Ordo Baptizatornni^ which was kindly sent us from 
the Archives of the Maryland Province, we find the date 
1760. Some may think that he brought this ''Ordo" 
from England, but on the first page we read: *' St. Jo- 
seph's, St. Mary's County, Christenings of Jos. Mosley, 
1760." Besides, I find in an old Catalogue: ''1760, 
Joseph Mosley at Newtown." Mr. George Johnston, the 
historian of Cecil County, says that Mosley was at Bo- 
hemia in 1760. This is a mistake. He himself says in 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 1 35 

his " Day Book," as we noted elsewhere, that he arrived 
at Bohemia, August nth, 1764, in company with Father 
John Lewis. There is also the authority of an old cata- 
logue for saying that he did not arrive at Bohemia before 
that year. From his '' Day Book " we^learn that on the 
31st of August, 1764, he began his "journey and Mis- 
sion in Queen Ann's and Talbot County." On Septem- 
ber 2d he '* first kept Church in Queen Ann's Cty." On 
the 9th of the same month he '' first kept Church in Tal- 
bot Cty." On the 5th of October he received a visit 
'' from Mr. Harding, who arriv'd from Philadelphia." On 
the 15th of October Mr. Harding returned to Philadel- 
phia and he accompanied him thither. On that occasion 
he received from " Mr. Manners 4£ cur. for Paint for y*" 
House." On the 21st of October he ''preached at Phil- 
adelphia in y*^ old chapel." On the 23d of October he 
left Philadelphia in company with Mr. Harding. On the 
next day, having parted with Mr. Harding on the way, 
he arrived at Bohemia. In 1765, he settled at St. Jo- 
seph's, Talbot County. The precise day was the i8th of 
March. On the 2d of February, 1766, he had the hap- 
piness of making his religious profession to Father Far- 
mer. In a catalogue we find ''Joseph Mosley, 1769, at 
St. Joseph's, E. S." On the 15th of June, 1775, he had 
the sad privilege of burying Father Matthias Manners, 
who died at Peace with God and man, at Bohemia. Fa- 
ther Mosley himself died at St. Joseph's Station, June 
3d, 1787, aged fifty-six years. He was interred in the 
chapel which he himself had erected. 

Father Mosley kept a very faithful record of all mar- 
riages, burials, baptisms, and conversions. He also took 
note of the numbers of confessions he heard, and the 



136 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

number of times he distributed the Holy Eucharist. In 
his Note-Book we find : '' Confessions received at Easter 

and Communicants from y'' year 1759 to A. D. 

1787." During the Easter-time of the year 1759, in St. 
Joseph's Forest, he heard 1078 confessions. Out of this 
number 945 were communicants. At Easter, 1760 and 
1 761, the number of confessions and communions was 
nearly the same as in 1759. It seems that in 1762 he 
was no longer in St. Joseph's Forest, for in that year he 
states that he heard 955 confessions '' in Sakia and New- 
port." In 1763, and up to August in 1764, he continued 
to labor with much fruit at Sakia and Newport. 

If the zeal of Father Mosley was great while among 
the Catholics of St. Mary's County, it burst into a bright 
and all-consuming flame on his arrival on the Eastern 
Shore. Here he found few members of the true fold. 
And sad it is to relate, that some who had been brought 
up in the Catholic Faith had grown cold, and others, 
alas, had fallen away altogether from the Church. One 
of the principal causes of these losses was the lack of 
priests and Catholic teachers. Persecution, too, had 
much to do with them. *' There is reason to believe," 
writes the historian of Cecil County, '' that the Protest- 
ants of Sassafras Neck, Middle Neck, and Bohemia 
Manor petitioned the legislature at the session of 1756, 
praying that stringent measures might be taken against 
the Jesuits. At all events the lower house at this session 
was about to pass a very stringent bill prohibiting the 
importation of Irish Papists via Delaware, under a pen- 
alty of ;^20 each, and denouncing any Jesuit or Popish 
priest as a traitor who tampered with any of his Majes- 
ty's subjects in the colony." It is true, that, owing to 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 137 

the governor's ** having prorogued the legislature shortly- 
after it was introduced," the bill did not pass ; but still 
private, petty, harassing, cunning persecutions went on 
everywhere in Cecil County. It is no wonder then that 
under the bonnet of a Quaker lady could be seen the 
meek face of a little Rachel Murphy ; it is no wonder 
that one sometimes met a gentleman with a broad- 
brimmed hat who was known to his neighbors as Eph- 
raim O'Keefe. Among the converts made by Father 
Mosley I find a Rachel McGonigaL Among the con- 
verts made by Father John Bolton, after the death of 
Mosley, I find Mary O'Keefe, Jonathan Callahan, and 
'' ah Irish woman at Mr. Summer's, called Catharine 
Murphy." 

Father James Farrar was enrolled among the sons of 
St. Ignatius in 1725. His name occurs for the first time 
in old catalogues for the Maryland Mission in the year 
1733. He was in Newtown in 1742. I find his name 
mentioned in that year in the Newtown Day Book. He 
was professed of the four vows in 1743. He returned to 
England, probably in 1747. According to Oliver he 
died at Hooton in Cheshire, on the i8th day of July, 
1753, at the age of fifty-seven. He was buried in the 
Chancel of Eastham. 

Father James Ashby, alias Middlehurst, was born in 
Lancashire on the i8th of October, 17 14. He made his 
noviceship at Watten, that favorite home of religious 
fervor. Four years after his entrance into the Society, 
he was probably a priest before becoming a Jesuit, we 
find him on the Maryland Mission laboring with Fathers 
Richard Molyneux, Bennet Neale, James Farrar, and 
Thomas Poulton. During his missionary life in South- 



138 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

ern Maryland he was stationed in various places. At 
one time we find him laboring zealously at St. Inigoes; 
again we find him at St. Thomas', and again at Newtown. 
In the Catalogue for 1758 we find ''James Ashby, late 
of Newtown." Father Ashby spent several years at this 
latter place, and to his labors the people there are in- 
debted for the present Newtown Church. He also built 
a house at St. Inigoes for the Fathers. This structure 
was of solid brick and contained twelve rooms. It was 
unfortunately burned down some years ago, and in its 
destruction were lost many documents and books which 
would help to throw much light upon St. Inigoes' his- 
toric Residence. 

Father Ashby died at Newtown on the 23d of Septem- 
ber, 1767. He lies beside the church he had labored so 
hard to build. His name, it is sad to say, is forgotten 
in Britton's Neck, though he it was who gave that con- 
gregation the church in which they have for many gen- 
erations knelt to worship God. To Father George 
Fenwick's notes I am indebted for the knowledge that 
Father Ashby was the builder of the present church at 
Newtown. 

In the old Newtown Note-Book I find the name of 
George Thorold. This was one of the most laborious of 
all the missionaries of Southern Maryland. He toiled 
faithfully and ardently in the Mission for the space of 
forty-two years. 

Father George Thorold was born of a wealthy family 
in Berks, February nth, 1670. Having reached his 
twenty-first year he renounced the world, and all worldly 
advantages, and consecrated himself to religion by enter- 
ing the Society of Jesus. Before coming to America he 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 1 39 

had been chaplain at Michaelgate, Bar Convent, York. 
The missioners of the Yorkshire District lived in per- 
petual danger. ''After London," it is said, ** York was 
more deeply dyed in the blood of English martyrs than 
any city in England." From this we can deduce what 
manner of life Father Thorold led while on the English 
Mission. It was in York Castle that the martyred Fa- 
ther Nicholas Postgate, while a prisoner, composed the 
touching and beautiful verses beginning with the stanza : 

" O gracious God, O Savious meek, 
Jesus, think of me, 
And suffer me to kiss Thy feet, 
Though late I come to Thee." 

The hymn is still used in the wild moorlands of Ug- 
thorpe. We wonder if Father Thorold did not teach it 
to his people on the banks of St. Mary's River or down 
by St. Clement's Bay ? Towards the end of his long 
missionary life how appropriate this verse would be on 
the lips of the venerable priest himself: 

" My wearied wings, sweet Jesus, mark, 
And when thou thinkest best, 
Stretch forth Thy hand out of the ark. 
And take me to Thy rest." 

We may reasonably suppose that there was scarcely 
a congregation in Southern Maryland which did not 
enjoy the care and zeal of Father Thorold. In 1725 he 
was appointed Superior of the Mission. This position 
he held for about nine years. He died, crowned with 
labors and merits, on the 15th of November, 1742. 

Father George was probably brother to Edmund or 



I40 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Epiphanius Thorold, alias Turner, who was distinguished 
in the home missions, and who was for a time Superior 
of the Mission of Market Rasen, in the College of St. 
Hugh. 

I find also the name of James Whitgreave in the old 
Newtown Note-Book. Father James Whitgreave was 
the son of Thomas Whitgreave, Esq., of Mosley, County 
Stafford, and his wife Isabella, daughter of William 
Turville, Esq., of Aston-Flamville. His father's second 
wife was Isabella, daughter and co-heir of Sir Aston 
Cokayne, Kt., of Pooley, County Warwick. On his 
maternal side Father Whitgreave had several kinsmen 
who were distinguished and holy members of the 
Society of Jesus. 

Moseley, the birthplace of James Whitgreave, was a 
hamlet near Wolverhampton. '' The original abode of 
the Whitgreave family w^as at Whitgreave near Stafford, 
where in the time of Henry II. ' Clemens Fihus Huberti 
de Whitgreave ' gave to the Priory of St Thomas, on the 
river .Sow, eight acres of land in the territory of Whit- 
greave. The family continued at Whitgreave till the 
time of Henry IV., when William de Whitgreave who 
had married Joan, granddaughter and heiress of David 
de Malplas, was appointed bailiff of Stafford, to which 
town he removed. Robert, one of the younger sons, 
became an officer in the royal Exchequer, and Escheator 
of the County of Stafford, and in the former capacity 
accompanied Henry V. into France. He bought the 
Manors of Burton and Bridgford, with other estates in 
the county of Stafford, as also the manor of Longford in 
Shropshire, and settled at Burton near Stafford. His 
grandson, another Robert, in the time of Henry VIII., 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 14I 

received the manor of Bridgford for his portion as a 
second son, and married Dorothy Noel of Hilcott, in the 
county of Stafford. Their fourth son, Thomas, by his 
marriage in the time of James L, with AHce, daughter 
and co-heiress of Henry Pitt, a ' merchant of the Staple ' 
acquired the estate of Moseley, which passed to his only 
son, Thomas. This gentleman became an officer in the 
royal army during the Civil Wars, and had the honor of* 
sheltering in his house Charles IL, after the battle of 
Worcester. On the Restoration he received a pension 
from the King, and was appointed gentleman Usher to 
the Queen, Catharine of Braganza. His only surviving 
son, Thomas, married Isabel Turville, and had besides 
other children, Thomas and James^ who became priests 
of the Society of Jesus. The present Henry Whit- 
greave, Esq., of Moseley, his brothers and sisters are the 
great, great, great-grandchildren of Thomas Whitgreave 
above mentioned, who saved the life of his Sovereign. 
The old house at Moseley (built in the time of Elizabeth) 
in which Charles was sheltered, and the priest's hiding- 
place there in which he took refuge, when his life was 
endangered by a threatened search from the Puritans, 
still exist. 

*^ The mission at Moseley was served by the Fathers 
of the Society till its suppression, and to them the family 
is indebted for the consolations of religion during the 
darkest days of persecution in England." 

The story of how the grandfather of Father Whit- 
greave saved the life of King Charles is very" romantic. 
As it will help to throw some light upon the early home 
of our missionary in old England w^e shall give it in as 
few words as possible : After the defeat of the royal army 



142 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

at Worcester, the King was obliged to fly for his life to 
the woods and fields. Searches were made for him by 
the Puritans on all sides. For a time the royal fugitive, 
with his hair cut short, and wearing " an old green 
woodriff 's coat, and a white steeple crown hat," labored 
in the woods with a peasant, and concealed himself at 
night in a tree, which was long afterwards known as the 
Royal Oak. The friends of his Majesty soon sought out 
for him a more suitable dwelling-place. This was the 
house of Thomas Whitgreave upon whose loyalty and 
fidelity the King could fully depend. Charles rode up 
to Whitgreave's on a mill horse. He was received 
respectfully by that gentleman and Mr. Hudleston, ''a 
priest of the Holy Order of St. Bennet," who resided at 
Moseley House. 

'' For the better security of his Majesty's retreat, Mr. 
Whitgreave sent all his servants betimes in the morning, 
each to their several employments abroad, except one 
cook maid, a Catholic, who dressed their diet ; and it was 
farther pretended Mr. Hudleston had a cavalier friend or 
relation, newly escaped from Worcester, who lay pri- 
vately in his chamber unwilling to be seen. So that this 
grand secret was imparted to none in the house but Mr. 
Whitgreave's mother, whom my Lord Wilmot presented 
to the King, and whom his Majesty graciously saluted 
and confided in. At that time Mr. Hudleston had with 
him at Mosely under his tuition, young Sir John 
Preston, and two other youths, Mr. Thomas Palin and 
Mr. Francis Reynolds, nephews to Mr. Whitgreave. 
These he placed at several windows in the garrets from 
whence they had a prospect of all the passages from all 
parts to the house, with strict charge given them to 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 143 

bring timely notice of any, whether soldiers or others 
that came near the house, and herein the boys were as 
exact and vigilant as any sentinel could be on his 
guard." While the king was engaged in eating, which 
he did in the Priest's Room, he w^as waited on by Mr. 
Hudleston and Mr. Whitgreave, while '' old Mistress 
Whitgreave was called in and commanded to sit down 
and carve," for her royal guest. 

Mistress Whitgreave seems to have been a lady of 
great benevolence. Many of the poor soldiers who were 
maimed and wounded at Worcester sought relief at her 
door, and these she took into her house, and with great 
tenderness and charity washed and dressed their bleeding 
scars. During the. King's concealment "-he was pleased 
to inquire how Roman Catholics lived under the present 
usurped Government ; Mr. Hudleston told him they were 
persecuted on account of their religion and loyalty, yet 
his Majesty should see they did not neglect the duties 
of their Church ; hereupon he carried him upstairs, and 
showed him the Chapel, little, but neat and decent. The 
King, looking respectfully upon the altar, and regarding 
the crucifix, and silver candlesticks upon it, said : ' He 
had an altar, crucifix, and silver candlesticks of his own, 
till my Lord of Holland broke them, which (added the 
King) he hath now paid for." 

One afternoon a party of the rebels unexpectedly came 
to search Moseley for Mr. Whitgreave ; their approach 
was timely discovered and a servant came running up 
stairs towards the chamber where the King lay, and 
cried out — " Soldiers, soldiers are coming !" Upon this 
the King was immediately conveyed by Mr. Whitgreave 
into the private place or receptacle before mentioned. 



144 ^^LD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

which always stood open and ready in case of contin- 
gencies for his Majesty's retreat. And Mn Whitgreave, 
to prevent further search, and thereby secure the King 
from hazard of discovery, generously went down and 
exposed himself to the sight and fury of the soldiers, 
who violently seized upon him and would have hurried 
him to prison as a person engaged for the King in Wor- 
cester fight, but he assured them that he had been a long 
time sick and infirm at home, and called in the neighbors 
to attest the same ; wherefore, after much dispute, they 
at length let him go and departed. When they had 
quitted the town, and not before, Mr. Whitgreave re- 
turned, and with Mr. Hudleston, helped the King out of 
his confinement, and attended him in his chamber. Mr. 
Hudleston knew the King was acquainted with his char- 
acter and function, and consequently also of his being 
obnoxious to the sanguinary laws, and therefore said : 
*' Your Majesty is in some sort in the same condition 
with me now, liable to dangers and perils, but I hope 
God, that brought you hither, will preserve you here, 
and that you will be safe in this place as in any castle of 
your dominions." The King addressing himself both to 
Mr. Whitgreave and Mr. Hudleston, replied : " If it please 
God I come to my crown, both you and all of your per- 
suasion shall have as much liberty as any of my sub- 
jects." 

How badly King Charles kept his promise is well 
known to all who are acquainted with English history. 

Father James Whitgreave was born March the 14th, 
1698. His humanities were made at St. Omer's, and his 
novitiate, which he began in his seventeenth year, at the 
Jesuit House at Watten. He came to Maryland in his 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 145 

twenty-sixth year, and labored strenuously in that Mis- 
sion for the space of fourteen years. A part of this time 
he spent at Bohemia Manor. In 1738 he returned to 
^England and became a missioner in the College of St. 
Chad (his native County of Stafford), being declared its 
Rector in 1743. The ancient town of Wolverhampton, 
it is stated, was the headquarters of St. Chad's College 
or District. In the year 996 a monastery was founded 
there by Wulfrana, sister of King Edgar, and widow of 
Aldhelm, Duke of Northampton, in honor of whom this 
town, previously called Hampton, received the appelation 
of Wulfranis-Hampton, of which its present name is a 
corruption. The monastery continued until the year 
1200, when it was surrendered to Hubert, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, and was subsequently annexed by Edward 
IV. to the Deanery of Windsor. On the revival of reli- 
gion on the accession of James II., the English Jesuits 
had a flourishing College, and a large residence and 
chapel at this town. In fact, Wolverhampton was called 
the Little Rome on account of the great number of Cath- 
olics there. It was also the seat of the long-lived labors 
of Father William Atkins, who died a martyr for the 
Faith in Stafford gaol, 17th of March, 1 681, at the age 
of eighty years, being under sentence of death; and 
Wolverhampton also had for its missioner for some years 
the blessed Martyr, Father John Gavin, who suffered at 
Tyburn. 

Father James Whitgreave, after having passed 
through many dangers and hardships, both in Maryland 
and in England, passed to a better life at Moseley, on 
the 26th day of July, 1750. As already intimated, he 
had a brother in the Society. This Father labored un- 



146 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

ceasingly in the Missions of Salden, of Oxford, and of 
St. Chad. 

Father Joseph Hattersty was born in London on the 
15 th of October, 1735. He was the son of Joseph 
Hattersty and Elizabeth Grogan, both fervent Catholics. 
He entered the English College at Rome as an alumnus 
in 1749. Four years later on, in company with Father 
Anthony Lowe, who was afterwards imprisoned by the 
Revolutionists who had taken Dunkirk, he was admitted 
to the Society. *' After his ordination,*' says Oliver, 
" he offered himself with a good and willing mind, and 
generous heart, for the American Mission." He arrived 
in Maryland July 12th, 1762. He was working on the 
Newtown Mission during the years 1768 and 1769. On 
May the 8th, 1 771, he died at Philadelphia, at the early 
age of thirty-five. The Catalogue, after mentioning his 
death, adds that he was ** a most holy and zealous mis- 
sioner.'' 

Father Hattersty was one of those zealous Jesuit mis- 
sionaries who were accustomed to go from St. Joseph's, 
Philadelphia, into the Southern part of New Jersey. He 
paid visits to the scattered Catholics of Gloucester and 
Salem Counties, and no doubt did much good wherever 
he went. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. I47 



CHAPTER IX. 



Father Vincent Phillips was for some time at New- 
town. I find his name in a few places in the old Note- 
Book of that house. He was a native of Worcestershire 
and was born on the 23d of September, 1698. His 
noviceship was made at Watten. This he began in his 
nineteenth year. After his ordination he was sent from 
the Continent back to England and served the Missions 
in the London and Suffolk Districts. Probably no 
district of the English Province of the Society suffered 
so severely as the College of St. Ignatius, or the London 
District. It contained within its limits the very seat of 
the persecuting government, with its judicial courts and 
State prisons, which at one period formed the principal 
residences of the Fathers, while T}.burn was witness 
of the deaths of seventeen and St. Paul's Churchyard of 
one of its martyrs for the Faith, to say nothing of the 
numbers who died within its prison-walls, noble con- 
fessors in the same cause. So bitter was the hatred the 
Puritans bore everything loved and cherished by Cath- 
olics that they even tore down the old Signs of Redemp- 
tion that had been raised in the public ways of London 
during the days of living faith. From an old absurd 
paper we learn that the Golden Cross in Cheapside was 
torn down in 1642, and with infamous irreverence 
carried in funeral procession. More than ordinary 



148 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

courage was needed by the missionaries who served in 
the London District, and this no doubt Father Phillips 
possessed. While in the Suffolk District this Father 
was Chaplain at Gifford's Hall, once the seat of the 
religious Mannock family. This mission was not with- 
out its dangers, and a very amusing story is told of an 
Anglican clergyman there who was once mistaken for a 
Jesuit and nearly stoned to death by an excited mob. 

Oliver says that Father Phillips was professed while 
serving the Maryland Mission, in 1735. About nineteen 
years afterwards he returned to England and became a 
mi^sioner in the Oxford District. 

Father Phillips died at the home prepared for *^ veter- 
ans," at Ghent, in 1760. 

Father James Walton was one of the missionaries of 
Newtown. He is marked in the old catalogues as being 
in that residence in 1778 and 1780. Father Walton was 
an humble man, and most zealous in working for the 
salvation of his neighbor. He seemed to have nothing 
so much at heart as the advancement in perfection of his 
spiritual children. Archbishop Carroll, in one of his 
letters, says that Father Walton was indefatigable in his 
labors in behalf of those committed to his care. The 
journey of Father Walton from St. Mary's County to 
Frederick, where he began to '^ live alone " on the 27th 
of June, 1768, must have been indeed a trying one.* 

* Father John Williams, a native of Flintshire, Wales, had been 
at Frederick before the year 1768. On Father Walton's arrival in 
that town. Father Wilhams returned to England, where he died, 
in Monmouthshire, in 1793, or as some say in 1801. Father James 
Pellentz, who spent ten years at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was at 
Frederick for eighteen months. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 1 49 

Mounted on his horse, and in disguise, he had to ride 
through many a hamlet hostile to Catholics, and espe- 
cially to Jesuits. To a kind Providence alone he had to 
trust for food and for shelter, when night came down 
upon his way. He passed upon his dangerous route 
many a one who was ready to imbrue his hands in the 
blood of every Papist priest in the land. But, thanks to 
God, the holy missionary arrived safely at his place of 
destination, there to work without tiring for the glory of 
his Creator and Redeemer. 

Father Walton was engaged in missionary work at St. 
Inigoes for some time. He was the successor of Father 
Ignatius Matthews in that residence. He sank from his 
labors at this last-named place in 1803. His loss was 
severely felt in the Mission."^ 

In one of the books of the Newtown Library I find 
the name of John Boone. This Father belonged to a 
fine old Catholic family in Maryland which gave many 
of its members to the service of the Church. Father 
John had a cousin and a brother who were members of 
the Society of Jesus. Father Joseph, his cousin, was the 
son of Henry Boone and Miss Spalding, his wife, of 
Charles County, Maryland. Joseph accompanied his 
half-sister, Rachel, to France, and went himself to St. 
Omer's College, and was there educated, ordained, and 
finally died. Father Edward Boone, Father John's bro- 
ther, labored zealously on the English Mission, and died 

* Bishop Leonard Neale announced Father Walton's death in a 
letter to Father Marmaduke Stone, Superior in England. In this 
letter the Bishop says : " The Rev. Mr. Walton is gone to a better 
life to receive the reward of his faithful and laborious exertions. 
His loss is severely felt." 



ISO OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

happily at Danby, Yorkshire. Nor were the Boone 
family wanting in patriotism. One of them, John, was a 
Lieutenant in the Maryland Line during the Revolution- 
ary War. Another of the Boones was elected High 
Sheriff of Maryland. Father John Boone, being ordained, 
was sent on the Maryland Mission in 1765. About five 
years later he returned to England and there labored 
with much fruit for fourteen years. In 1784 he again 
returned to his beloved Mission. At the meeting of the 
'* Select Body of the Catholic Clergy," held at White 
Marsh in 1794, he was present. About one year after- 
wards he yielded up his faithful soul into the hands of 
his Creator. 

It would have been difficult for the English Province 
to supply its Mission with priests during the Penal Days 
if God had not called many young Americans, chiefly 
Marylanders, to work in His vineyard on this side of the 
Atlantic. The priest of whom we are just going to 
speak, like the Boarmans, the Sewalls, and the Fenwicks, 
was a native of Maryland. Ignatius Matthews, being 
already ordained priest, entered the Society at Watten 
on the 7th of September, 1763. After his noviceship, 
and some studies, he was sent, in 1766, to the Maryland 
Mission. He was at St. Inigoes 29th March, 1784. He 
died at Newtown, May the i ith, 1790, at the age of sixty. 
I have been informed that there is a fair picture of this 
Father in a private residence at Washington. It is in 
India ink, and is the work of Ethelbert Cecil, a young 
artist, whose great talent was lost for want of encourage- 
ment and proper cultivation. The artist represents Fa- 
ther Matthews as a venerable, yet hale man. He is in 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. IS I 

the act of delivering a sermon to his congregation in the 
Newtown Church. 

Father Ralph Falkner was a native of Maryland. It 
is likely that he made his humanities at the school 
opened by the Jesuits at Bohemia in 1745 or 1746. It 
may be well to remark here that it was in this school 
that Archbishop Carroll made a part of his studies. It 
is also probable that his cousin, Charles Carroll, of Car- 
roUton, also studied here for some time. 

Father Falkner was raised to the sublime dignity of 
the priesthood on the 7th day of March, 1761. One 
month after his ordination he set sail for Maryland. I 
fear that nearly everything relating to his missionary 
career has been lost. Ralph Falkiter, written upon an 
old book at Newtown, is the only trace I find of him in 
the Mission. 

The Neales, of Maryland, gave to that State some of 
its most distinguished sons. Captain James Neale, the 
worthy ancestor of that pious and well-known family, 
came to the Colony before the year 1642. In that year 
he had his '* Plantation " near the mouth of the Wicomico 
surveyed for his settlement. He was soon appointed the 
Privy Councillor of Maryland, and is said to have been 
a great favorite of the Crown. One of his daughters was 
named after the wife of Charles I., ** Henrietta Mariah.'' 
Among his descendants were many who consecrated 
their lives to the service of the Church, both as priests 
and nuns. Right Rev. Leonard Neale, the second Arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, was of his line. Even at this pres- 
ent moment one of the Missionary Fathers at St. Inigoes 
bears his name and inherits his blood. 

Among those who are at rest in the quiet Newtown 



152 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Churchyard is another of the Neales, Father Benedict. 
This worthy Father was born in Maryland on the 3d of 
August, 1709. After having pursued his studies on the 
European Continent, he resolved to devote his life to the 
labors of an apostolic life. And so, in his nineteenth 
year, he entered the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus. 
Not long after his ordination he was sent on the Mary- 
land Mission. This venerable priest must have labored 
in Southern Maryland for a period of no less than half a 
century. During that long time how much merits he 
must have amassed for Heaven. He died amidst his 
labors on the 20th of March, 1787. 

Father John Boarman,* who had two brothers, Charles 
and Sylvester, in the Society, was born in Charles 
County, Maryland. The date of his birth was January 
27th, 1743. He joined the Order on the 7th of Septem- 
ber, 1762. He pursued his philosophical and theological 
studies at Li6ge. On the Suppression of the Jesuit 
House in that city, he returned to his native State. 
Though he left Liege on the 22d of November, 1773, he 
did not arrive in the Mission before the 24th of March in 
the following year. Father Boarman was at Port To- 
bacco in 1783. He was present at the meeting convened 
at Newtown, September 23d, 1783. He also attended 

* During the cruel sway of the Parliament Commissioners, 
Thomas Matthews, John Dandy, and William Bo7^eman acknowl- 
edged the Pope's supremacy in open court. The Boarmans have 
clung lovingly to the Faith which William Boreman confessed at 
the peril of loss of property, and even of life. Some of iheir num- 
ber have borne the rich boon of Catholic Truth to homes in the 
far West, and one of them is a member of the Society, in the Mis- 
souri Province. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 153 

the meeting convened at St. Thomas' Manor in 1793, and 
that held at White Marsh in 1794. Father Boarman 
was, according to the best authorities, a pious, zealous, 
and devoted priest. His labors were incessant and most 
fruitful. During twenty years he prayed and toiled for 
the people committed to his paternal care. God was 
pleased to call this saintly priest to Himself in 1794, in 
the fifty-first year of his age. He died at Newtown, and 
was there interred amidst the prayers and tears of his 
sorrowing congregation. 

No name is more familiar to the student who examines 
the books of the Newtown Library than that of Augus- 
tine Jenkins. His name is found written in the pages of 
several Latin, French, and English works. Augustine 
Jenkins was a native of Maryland, and was born January 
the 1 2th, 1742. His ancestors, who were natives of 
Wales, fled from persecution to Maryland, and as early 
as 1660 established themselves at the head of the St. 
Mary's River. His father was a gentleman highly es- 
teemed in Southern Maryland; his mother was the 
daughter of Captain Thomas Courtenay. He had sev- 
eral brothers who left St. Mary's County on account of 
the persecutions they had to suffer at the hands of the 
enemies of the Catholic Faith. The members of the 
Jenkins family always proved themselves devoted chil- 
dren of the Church. '* They flourished under the pater- 
nal government of the Calverts, and suffered persecution 
under the Protestant Ascendancy, but neither prosperity, 
the hope of reward, nor pains and penalties, ever caused 
them to swerve from that which they cherished above all 
things, the faith for which they had forsaken their parent 
land." 



154 O^^ CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

The Jenkins family took a patriotic part in the Revo- 
lutionary War. In 1812, no less than five of Father 
Jenkins' nephews did battle for their country against the 
foreign foe. 

White Plains, which originally belonged to the Jenkins 
family was described to me by one who saw it many 
years ago as being a charming place. Rows of tall pop- 
lars guarded the avenue leading up to the venerable 
residence. A rich green lawn lay spread before it. 
Pebbled walks, fringed with snow-white shells, over 
which drooped fragrant and delicate flowers, wound 
around it in graceful curves. Everything within the 
mansion, as well as its surroundings, bespoke the elegant 
and refined taste of its inmates. The influence of early 
associations will generally last through life. It is almost 
impossible for one whose childhood and early boyhood 
were passed in the midst of elegance and refinement to 
grow rude or unpolished in manners and behavior. 
This is the reason why the missioners of Maryland, 
whether in the hovels of the poor white settlers, or in 
the wigwams of the Indians, could always be distin- 
guished as gentlemen by birth and education. The 
effect of his first education at White Plains was always 
seen in the conduct and bearing of Augustine Jenkins. 
He was sweet, affable, and gentlemanly in all his ways. 
He felt perfectly at his ease as well in the cottage as in 
the manor. The charm of his manners was universally 
felt. He had a winning grace about him that won the 
affection of all who came in contact with him. His gen- 
erous heart, which was a well of goodness, overflowed 
with kindly feeling. It is, indeed, no wonder then, when 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 155 

we also take into account his zeal and solid virtue, that 
he proved most successful as a missionary. 

Young Jenkins, while still a gay-hearted boy, had 
to endure the pangs of a wide separation from his home 
and friends. It was resolved that the pious, gentle youth 
should proceed to the Old Catholic Continent to prose- 
cute his studies. We can fancy that we see him bidding 
farewell to his little playmates and brothers; we can 
imagine that we behold him kneeling humbly to receive 
his cherished parents' blessing. He arises, embraces all, 
and drives down to meet the boat that awaits him ; but 
before he is out of sight of his loved home he looks back 
upon the scenes of his childhood with a fond and linger- 
ing gaze. 

After having spent some years in Europe, young Jen- 
kins resolved to enter the Society of Jesus, which he did 
on the 7th of September, 1766. After his noviceship he 
continued his studies at Li6ge. 

The first English Novitiate of the Society of Jesus was 
commenced at St. John's, Louvain, in 1607. In 1614 it 
received students in Philosophy and Divinity, as well as 
novices ; a separate house in the garden being fitted up 
for the latter. At the end of the same year, however, 
the Novitiate was removed to Li6ge. The ground occu- 
pied by the house, garden, etc., was purchased in 1614 
or 161 5 by Father John Gerard, and the house was built 
with money furnished by English Catholics. A few 
years later, Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, assigned an 
annual pension for the maintenance of the College, and 
thus became its founder, though the premises were Eng- 
lish property. Towards the end of the seventeenth cen- 
tury the farm at Chevremont was purchased and given 



156 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAiND AND 

to the College for a country or villa-house by Lord Cas- 
tieman. Li^ge continued to be the theologate of the 
English Province until the year of the Suppression of 
the Society, 1773. 

Father Jenkins was that year at Li6ge engaged in 
studying his fourth year of theology. His Professor of 
Sacred Scripture was Father Thomas Barrow, *' a prodigy 
of learning ;" a man of almost universal genius. Our 
young missionary studied the controverted points of reli- 
gion under the learned and holy Father Anthony Brun- 
ing, a distinguished theologian of his time. Of Jenkins' 
Theological Professor, Rev. Thomas Ellerker, Oliver 
says : '* he was a worthy scholar of such a master as 
Father John Thorpe. At the end of Rhetoric, in 1755, 
this promising young man entered the Novitiate, and in 
the sequel became one of the ablest professors of theol- 
ogy that the English Province ever produced. His 
treatise Be Incarnatione may be regarded as a master- 
piece. 

' From his cradle 
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; 
And to add greater honours to his age 
Than man could give him, he died fearing 
Heaven/ " 

Among those who served in the Maryland Mission 
who had the good fortune to be students with Father 
Jenkins under such able professors, were : Fathers 
Charles Sewall, John Boarman, John Boone, and Leon- 
ard Neale. 

After his studies and ordination Father Jenkins re- 
turned to Maryland. He arrived on the 24th day of 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 157 

May, 1774. A few years later on we find him engaged 
at Newtown. His apostolic work had the special bless- 
ing of Heaven on it. He made many converts, reclaimed 
hardened sinners, and led pious souls to a higher degree 
of sanctity. His confessional was always surrounded 
by penitents, and the people flocked around him to re- 
ceive Holy Communion from his hands. He was, as 
Archbishop Carroll truly said, '' a man without guile/* 
the loved and tender father of his flock. 

The Rev. Father Jenkins, after many labors and pains, 
died a happy death at Newtown on the 2d of February, 
in the year of our Lord 1800. 

Bishop Carroll writes in April, 1780: "With Father 
Walton, at Newtown, lives, among others, that man 
without guile, Father Jenkins. I am told he is 
almost adored by his acquaintance ; and I dare say, very 
deservedly." 




158 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 



CHAPTER X. 



John Lucas was born on the 5th of May, 1740. Twen- 
ty-three years afterwards he entered the Society. Soon 
after his elevation to the priesthood he was sent on the 
Maryland Mission. That was in 1770. He died in 
Maryland in 1795. 

It was about the time that Father Lucas labored in 
the Mission that one of the Fathers died heroically in 
the performance of one of his priestly functions.* The 
Father, some say it was Lucas himself, being summoned 
on a sick-call in the depth of a dark and raw night, was 
overtaken by a heavy snow-storm. For some time he 
struggled on bravely towards the house of the sick man. 
At length, being overcome by the cold and fatigue, 
he fell prostrate on the ground. Some farmers passing 
early the next morning to their work found him dead in 
the snow. As we write, the words of the poet Longfel- 
low come naturally to our mind : 

• " There, in the twilight cold and grey, 
Lifeless, but beautiful he lay, 
And from the sky serene and far 
A voice fell like a falling star, Excelsior." 

This may be the place to insert an anecdote which we 
have on very good authority. One evening a Protestant 

"^ Related by Rev. James Fitton who died in Boston a few years 
ago. 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 1 59 

gentleman rode past the Newtown Manor on his way to 
Long Point. The hour was calm and beautiful. The 
sun was sinking behind the groves of Bedlam Neck. A 
flood of glory lit the waters of St. Clement's Bay. The 
traveller rode on leisurely, little dreaming that the heav- 
ens would soon be rent by forked lightning. Yet such 
was the case. On his return home a terrific storm swept 
over Bedlam Neck. The rain fell in torrents, the sky 
grew pitchy black, the winds lashed the tranquil waters 
to fury. In his fright, the wayfarer sought an asylum in 
the hospitable old Manor. The Fathers received him 
very kindly and remained with him for hours at the par- 
lor fire. About midnight the bells of the house were 
rung with violence. In a moment one of the attendants 
rushed into the room and announced an urgent sick-call. 
Without a moment's hesitation one of the Fathers arose 
and begged the guest to excuse him, as he had to attend 
to a sick-call. The gentleman was surprised and urged 
the Father to wait until the storm had abated. The Fa- 
ther smiled graciously and said : '' My dear sir, it is im- 
possible for me to remain. At all hazards I must attend 
the sick." Soon the sound of a horse's hoof could be 
heard on the road leading from the Newtown Manor. 
The Father was on his way to visit the dying. The 
Protestant gentleman was so touched by the devoted 
charity of the priest that he exclaimed: "The religion 
that produces such heroic self-sacrifice must be divine." 
He prolonged his stay at the Manor, received instruction, 
and became a good and fervent Catholic. 

Joseph Doyne was born in Maryland, November nth, 
1734. He entered the Society on the 7th of September. 
1758. He served the Mission at Stonyhurst for eleven 



l6o OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

years. Having been sent on the Maryland Mission, he 
labored in different parts of the lower counties. He was 
for a long time at St. Thomas' Manor in Charles County. 
He is mentioned many times m the letters of Bishop 
Carroll. I find his name in several of the books of the 
Newtown Library. He was a member o'f the Select 
Body of the Catholic Clergy. He took part in the meet- 
ing convened at St. Thomas' Manor in 1793. He was 
also present at the meeting held at White Marsh in 1794. 
He was one of those Fathers who wished to join ** the 
Institute of the Farth of Jesus." He died at St. Thomas' 
Manor, 1803. 

The name of Robert Molyneux is closely connected 
with the history of the Newtown Mission. This learned 
scholar and eloquent preacher was born at or near 
Formby, County Lancaster, July 24th, 1738. He was 
descended from a high and distinguished family. The 
pictures hanging on the walls of his ancestral chambers 
were well calculated to inspire him with generous and 
noble sentiments. On September 7th, 1757, he entered 
the Society. He had the happiness of seeing one of his 
brothers, William, a member of the Order. In 1764 
Father Robert was a Master at Bruges College. Soon 
after his ordination he was sent on the Maryland Mis- 
sion. So highly did Archbishop Carroll esteem him 
that he was anxious to make him his Coadjutor Bishop, 
but he could not be persuaded to accept the post. In 
1786 and 1787 we find him distinguishing himself in 
Philadelphia as a good and zealous priest, and as a re- 
markably eloquent speaker. In 1789 we find him em- 
ployed in missionary work at Bohemia. He spent the 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. l6l 

year 1796 at Georgetown, and 1797 and 1798 at New- 
town. In 1805 he is said to be in St. Mary's County. 
At the meeting held at Georgetown in 1805, it was re- 
solved that Robert Molyneux and Charles Sewall should 
take care of the business affairs of Cedar Point Neck. 
On the Restoration of the Society in this country, he 
was appointed the first Superior of the Mission. While 
Superior he won the confidence and affection of his sub- 
jects by his kind and affable manner. Father Molyneux 
was no ordinary man. On account of his learning, zeal, 
and solid virtue, he may well be considered one of the 
chief glories of the Society of Jesus in this country. 
He died at Georgetown in 1808, universally regretted by 
the clergy and laity. 

Father John Bolton was born October 22d, 1742. He 
entered the Novitiate at Watten on the 7th of September, 
1761. Soon after his ordination in 1771, he was sent on 
the Maryland Mission. In 1780 he was zealously em- 
ployed in Charles County. He was sent by his Superior 
to the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1787. I find an 
entry for that year in Father Mosley's *' Ordo " as fol- 
lows : '* 9th September, I, Jno. Bolton buried for y^ first 
time at St. Joseph's, Talbot." At the meeting held at 
St. Thomas' Manor on the 4th of October, 1793, Father 
Bolton was present. He was also at the meeting held 
at White Marsh on the 25th of February, 1794. There 
are two shelves full of venerable breviaries in the present 
Leonardtown Library. At the top of the title-page of 
one of these books, which was printed in 1759, I find 
** Joan. Bolton." Father Bolton's labors on the Eastern 
Shore were most fruitful. He not only confirmed the 



1 62 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

Catholics he found there on his arrival, but led a great 
many wanderers into the true fold. In Mosley's "Ordo'* 
I find: *'ab anno Dni 1787, J. Bolton, R. Jos. Mosley's 
successor.*' Then follows a long list of converts made 
by him in various places along the Eastern Shore of 
Maryland and in Delaware. Among his converts were 
many Quakers. That he devoted himself, like another 
Peter Claver, to those of African descent is proved by 
the vast number of colored persons whom he received 
into the Church. Father Bolton died at the Newtown 
Manor in the autumn of 1809. 

Bishop Carroll thus announces the death of Father 
Bolton, in a letter to Father Charles Plowden : " I am 
sorry to inform you that another of my, and indeed your, 
contemporaries, tho' some years older, has dropped off. 
Our honest and worthy Brother, the Rev. Mr. John 
Bolton, departed this life on the 9th of this month, in a 
most religious and placid manner. With moderate abil- 
ities, but an excellent will to fulfil the duties of his call- 
ing, he consecrated his days to them, always with punc- 
tuality and cheerfulness, winning the affections of his 
congregation wherever he lived, and never making an 
enemy. His sickness did not last more than a week ; it 
was contracted in the service of his neighbor, whom he 
visited and watched over till near midnight, and, in order 
to be in time at his chapel the next day (Sunday), left 
him with a profuse perspiration to expose himself to a 
noxious dew, which brought on the fever that terminated 
his existence, after receiving most calmly and piously 
all the rights of the Church. Let our Brethren know of 
his death.'^ 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 163 

Father Peter Morris, after having labored zealously 
during thirteen years, died suddenly at Newtown of apo- 
plexy. He was born on the 8th of March, 1743, and 
entered the Society on September the 7th, in the year 
1760. He came to Maryland in 1770. 

Arnold Livers enriched the Newtown Library with 
several of his books. This Father was born in Mary- 
land on the nth of May, 1705. He entered the Society 
at Watten, September the 7th, 1724. On the 2d of Feb- 
ruary, 1742, he was professed of the four vows. After 
having finished his studies he came back to Maryland 
and died here August i6th, 1777, aged seventy-two. 

Father Francis Xavier Neale was born in Charles 
County, Md., June 3d, 1756. He made his classical 
studies, like his brothers, Leonard and Charles, at St. 
Omer's ; afterwards he went to the " Academy " at Li^ge 
which during the Suppression continued for a time the 
good work of the English Scholasticate. Having been 
ordained, he left Liege, April 3d, 1 788, and returned to 
America and served on the old Missions of the Society 
in Maryland. When permission was obtained by Arch- 
bishop Carroll to establish a novitiate, one of the first to 
enter the Society, on the Feast of St. Francis Borgia, 
October the loth, 1806, was Father Francis Neale, and 
at the same time he was made Master of Novices, having 
under him Brother, afterwards Father John McElroy. 
There is in the Alexandria Residence a fine portrait in 
oil of Father Neale. He died at St Thomas' Manor, 
December 20th, 1837. 

Father Sylvester Boarman was a native of Maryland, 
and the brother of John and Charles, both Jesuits. He 



164 OLD CATHOLIC MARYLAND AND 

was born November 7th, 1746, and entered the Society- 
September 7th, 1765. At the time of the Suppression 
he was studying philosophy at Li6ge; and, before return- 
ing to Maryland, was ordained and became a very 
zealous missioner. From old records I learn that he 
returned to his native State on the 24th of March, 1784. 
He was stationed at Newtown in 1800. He was at St. 
Inigoes in 1805. He died at Newport, Charles County, 
in 1811. 

Father Ignatius Baker Brooke was a native of Mary- 
land, and probably the nephew of a Father of the same 
name who died at St. Omer's College, in 175 1. He was 
born on the 21st of April, in the very year in which his 
uncle died. He entered the Society on September the 
7th, \JJO. At ihe time of the Supression, 1773, he was 
at Ghent. He was at Newtown in 1802. . When Father 
Robert Molyneux left that Mission for Georgetown, in 
1805, Father Brooke became his successor. He re- 
mained as Superior at Newtown until 181 1. 

Father Brooke lived long enough to see a second 
Archbishop ruling in Maryland. What joy it must have 
given the venerable priest's heart to see the progress the 
Church had made in his native State before his eyes 
closed in death. He had known days of darkness and 
persecution for the Faith that he loved. But now, before 
he sinks to rest, he sees it in all the beauty of its rise. 
What transports would he not feel if he could behold it 
now in the mid-day of of its majesty and glory ! What 
consolation would not fill his heart if he saw the 
Churches, and Colleges, the Orphanages and Asylums 



ITS EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 1 65 

that now cheer and bless the land. Even a hundred 
years ago, 1789, when the great and good Archbishop 
Carroll was consecrated Bishop of Baltimore, none 
could dream of the marvelous, and almost miraculous 
splendor of the Church in Maryland in this year of our 
Lord, 1889. 



DEO GRATIAS! 




:%■ 



APPENDIX. 



CATALOGUE 

OF 

EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 
1634-1805. 



I prepared this Catalogue some years ago, and published 
it in the Woodstock Letters, I trust it may prove of 
some service to Catholic historical students. 

W. P. Treacy. 



1634 — Andrew White ; John Altham, alias Gravenor ; Timothy 
Hayes ? alias Hanmer ; Residence, St. Mary's City, Md. 

1635~The same. All at St. Mary's City. 

1636 — Thomas Copley, alias Phihp Fisher, Superior ; Andrew 
White ; John Rogers ? alias Bamfield ; John Wood ? Father 
Hayes returned to England about this time. St. Mary's still 
the principal Residence. 

1637 — Thomas Copley ; Andrew White ; John Altham. All prob- 
ably residing at St. Mary's. Father Knowles died soon after 
his arrival. 

1638— Ferdinand Poulton, aliases John Brock and Morgan, Supe- 
rior ; Andrew White ; Thomas Copley. At St. Mary's City. 
Fathers Rogers and Wood in England. 

1639 — Thomas Copley, St. Mary's City ; Ferdinand Poulton, with 
tKe Proprietary, at Mattapany on the Patuxent ; John Altham, 
on Kent Island ; Andrew White, in the palace of the king, 
whom they call Tayac, at Piscataway. 

167 



1 68 CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 

1640 — Thomas Copley, St. Mary's City ; Ferdinand Poulton, Mat- 
tapany ; Father Altham died at St. Mary's City, November 
5th of this year. During 1640 the missionaries made various 
excursions among the Indian tribes. They baptized the Em- 
peror and Empress of Piscataway, and visted the King of the 
Anacostans. 

1641 — Thomas Copley, St. Mary's City ; Andrew White, at Pis- 
cataway ; Roger Rigby, at a new settlement which in the vul- 
gar idiom they call Patuxent. In this year the missionaries 
■-^ opened a residence at Portobacco ; almost the whole town 
•' received the Faith with baptism." Father Poulton died. 

1642- — The same as to missionaries and residences. 

1643 — Andrew White at Portobacco. The rest as in 1641. 

1644 — It is supposed that Father Copley, owing to the attacks of 
Claiborne and Ingle, removed from St. Mary's City to St. 
Inigoes. Father John Cooper arrives in Maryland. 

1645 — Bernard Hartwell, Superior, at St. Inigoes ; Andrew White 
and Thomas Copley ; probably residing at Portobacco. Both 
these missionaries were this year taken prisoners by a party 
from Virginia. They were put in irons, and taken back to 
England. The other missionaries, Father John Cooper agd 
Fathers Hartwell and Rigby fled to Virginia. 

1646 — Bernard Hartwell, the only missionary in Maryland, died 
this year, probably at St. Inigoes. Roger Rigby, who had 
great influence among the Indians, and who was high in the 
esteem of Leonard Calvert, died of hardship in Virginia. Fa- 
ther John Cooper died in Virginia. 

1647 — This year the Catholics of Maryland mourned over the ab- 
sence of their beloved and devoted missionaries. 

1648 — Father Copley returned boldly to Maryland. He was re- 
received by his dear flock as " an Angel from God." One of 
his companions, perhaps Father Laurence Starkey, remained 
in Virginia. 

1649 — Thomas Copley, Superior, at St. Inigoes ; Laurence Star- 
key, alias Sankey. Father Starkey attended to the different 
outlying missions, Newtown, Portobacco, etc. 

1650 — Thomas Copley, Superior ; Laurence Starkey. 

1651— The same. 



\ 



CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 1 69 

1652 — Laurence Starkey. This year Claiborne, and his Puritan 
party, took possession of St. Mary's City and persecuted the 
Catholics of Maryland. 

1653 — Laurence Starkey alone in Maryland. Father Copley died. 

1654 — Francis Fitzherbert, alias Darby ; Laurence Starkey. About 
1654 Father Francis Rogers came to Maryland, but remained 
only a short time in that Mission. ^^iinr-mn ..,„.._ yin*"^ 

1655 — f rancis Fitzherbert, at St. Inigoes ; Laurence Starkey at- 
tending to the outlying missions. This year the Fathers were 
again persecuted. They had to fly to Virginia for safety. 
Their residences at St. Inigoes and Portobacco were sacked 
by the Puritans. The missionaries suffered much in Virginia 
where they lived in a low and mean hut not unlike a cave. 

1656 — The Fathers still forced to live in Virginia. 

1657 — No missionaries in Maryland. Father Starkey died in the 
midst of his trials in Virginia, on the 13th of February, 1657. 

1658 — Jesuits again in. Maryland. Francis Fitzherbert; Thomas 
Payton. This year Father Fitzherbert was arrested and tried ^ 
for teaching and preaching at Newtown and Chaptico."'''lie 
defended himself under the charter, and was acquitted. 

1659 — Francis Fitzherbert. Father Payton returned to England 
• on business. 

1660 — Francis Fitzherbert. Father Payton, returning to America, 
died on the voyage, January 12th, 1660. 

1661 — Francis Fitzherbert ; Henry Warren, alias Pelham. This 
year William Bretton, gent., gave a piece of land on Newtown 
Hundred as the site of a new church, and for a graveyard. 
The new church was at first dedicated to St. Ignatius, but 
afterwards it was placed under the patronage of St. Francis 
Xavier. 

1662 — Henry Warren. Father Fitzherbert returned to Europe. 

1663 — This year Father Warren obtained a conveyance of Church 
lands from Cuthbert Fenwick to himself, " Copley's succes- 
sor." Father Edward Tidder, alias Ingleby, in Maryland. 

1664 — Henry Warren ; Edward Tidder ; Peter Manners, vere Pel- 
con. It is a mistake to suppose that Peter Manners and 
George Pole were identical. 



I/O CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 

1665 — Henry Warren; Edward Tidder ; Peter Manners. This 
year Father Fitzwilliams, alias ViUrers, died in Maryland. 

1666 — Henry Warren ; Peter Manners ; George Pole ; Edward 
Tidder. 

1667 — Henry Warren ; Peter Manners ; Edward Tidder ; George 
Pole. 

1668 — Henry Warren ; George Pole ; Peter Manners. This year 
Father Henry Warren purchased the Newtown estate from 
Mr. William Bretton for 40,000 pounds of tobacco. 

1669 — Henry Warren, alias Pelham ; William Warren, alias Pel- 
ham. It is thought that these two missionaries were brothers. 
Father Peter Manners died on the 24th of April, and Father 
George Pole on the 31st of October. 

1670 — Henry Warren ; William Warren. 

1671 — Two missionaries in Maryland. Father William Warren 
died on the 7th of February. 

1672 — Two Fathers in Maryland. 

1673 — Two Franciscans arrived. Great harmony existed between 
them and the Jesuits. 

1674 — Father Clavering ; Father Waldegrave, alias Pelham. 

1675 — Francis Pennington ; Nicholas Gulick. Both these Fath^ 
came with the Royal Fleet from London. 

1676 — Francis Pennington ; N. Gulick. 

1677 — Thomas Gavan, Superior, with five companions — some 
priests and some Coadjutor Brothers. 

1678 — Michael Foster, Superior ; Francis Pennington ; Thomas 
Gavan ; Nicholas Gulick. 

1679 — Michael Foster, Superior ; Francis Pennington ; Thomas 
Gavan. 

1680 — The same. 

1681 — The same. 

1682 — To those in 1679 is added Father Thomas Percy. 

1683 — The same. Father Percy returns to England. A new 
Mission was begun at New York with Thomas Harvey, alias 
Barton, as Superior, and Henry Harrison, alias John Smith, 
as assistant missionary. 

1684 — Francis Pennington, Superior ; Thomas Gavan ; John Pen- 
nington, at Newtown. Father Foster died on the 6th of Feb- 



CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. I/I 

ruary. — New York : Thomas Harvey, Superior; Henry Har- 
rison, 

1685 — Francis Pennington, Superior; Thomas Gavan returned to 
England ; Father John Pennington died at Newtown on the 
18th of October. — New York : Thomas Harvey; Henry Har- 
rison. 

1686 — Francis Pennington, at Newtown Manor. — New York : 
Thomas Harvey, Superior ; Charles Gage ; Henry Harrison. 

1687 — Francis Pennington. — New York : Thomas Harvey; Charles 
Gage in England. 

1688 — Francis Pennington. — New York : Thomas Harvey; Henry 
Harrison. 

1689 — Francis Pennington. — New York : Fathers Harvey and 
Harrison are driven out. Father Harrison, in trying to make 
his escape to France, is taken by Dutch pirates. Father 
Harvey walked to Maryland. 

1690 — Francis Pennington ; John Matthews. Father Harrison is 
in Ireland. 

1691 — Francis Pennington ; John Matthews. 
;;jB*JU592 — William Hunter, Superior, residing at St. Thomas' Manor ; 
Francis Pennington at Newtown Manor ; John Matthews. 

1693 — Francis Pennington, Superior ; William Hunter ; John 
Matthews. 

1694 — Francis Pennington ; William Hunter. Father John Mat- 
thews died at Newtown, December the 8th, 1694. 

1695 — William Hunter, Superior; Francis Pennington. Father 
Harrison, at Loretto. 

1696 — William Hunter, Superior; John Hall; Robert Brooke. 
Father Thomas Harvey died in Maryland, aged 84. He spent 
65 years in the Society. 

1697 — William Hunter, Superior ; John Hall, Procurator ; Robert 
Brooke ; Henry Harrison. 

1698 — William Hunter, Superior ; Father James Gonent died on 
the voyage to Maryland, December 28th, 1698. 

1699 — William Hunter ; Father Francis Pennington expired at the 
house of Mr. Hill at Newtown, the 22d of February, 1699. 
Rev. James Haddock, O. Min. Str. Obs. 

1700 — William Hunter, Superior ; Robert Brooke ; George Tho- 



172 CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 

rold ; William Wood, alias Guillick, or Kellick ; Thomas 
Mansell. "Father Harrison is on his way; but nothing has 
been heard of him," says the Maryland Catalogue. 

1701 — William Hunter, Superior ; Robert Brooke ; Thomas Man- 
sell ; George Thorold, and another Father. Father Harrison 
died. 

1702 — William Hunter, Superior ; Robert Brooke ; Thom^as Man- 
sell ; George Thorold. Father Matthew Brooke died at St. 
Thomas' Manor ; Father Henry Warren died in England on 
June 7th, 1702. . 

1703 — William Hunter, Superior ; Robert Brooke ; Thomas Man- 
sell : George Thorold ; Wilham Wood ; Richard Kirkham, 
alias Latham ; Henry Cattaway. Father John Hall died this 
year, July 9th, at Ghent. 

1704 — William Hunter, Superior, at St. Thomas' Manor ; Robert 
Brooke, at Newtown Manor ; Thomas Mansell, at Bohemia 
Manor ; William Wood ; Geo. Thorold ; Richard Kirkham ; 
Henry Cattaway ; Thos. Havers. 

1705 — WiUiam Hunter, Superior ; Brooke, etc., as the past year. 

1706 — The same, except that Father Cattaway returned to Eng- 
land. Father Mansell obtained the patent for St. Xavier's, 
Bohemia. 

1707 — William Hunter, Superior; Robert Brooke; George Thor- 
old ; William Wood ; Thomas Mansell. 

1708— The same. 

1709— The same. 

1710 — Robert Brooke, Superior. 

1711 — Robert Brooke, Superior; Thomas Mansell; William 
Hunter ; George Thorold ; William Wood ; Thomas Hodg- 
son ; Peter Atwood ; Richard Thomas, alias Webster -^ 
Charles Brockholes ; Francis Beaumont, alias or vere 
Williams. 

1713 — The same. Father Henry Poulton died this year at New- 
town Manor, the 27th of September. 

1713 — The same. Father Thomas Hodgson at Bohemia. 

1714 — The same. Father Robert Brooke died at Newtown 
Manor, 18th of July. Thomas Mansell, Superior. 

1715 — Thomas Mansell, Superior ; the rest the same. 



CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 1/3 

1716 — The same. It is said that Father Brockholes returned to 
England this year. 

1717 — The same. 

1718 — The same. Father Francis Beaumont returned to England. 

1719 — The same. Father William Gerard arrived. 

1720 — The same. George Thorold at St. Thomas' Manor. 
Father William Wood died in the month of August. 

1721 — William Hunter at St. Thomas' Manor; Joseph Greaton ; 
Thomas Mansell ; George Thorold ; William Gerard ; Thomas 
Hodgson ; Peter Atwood ; Richard Thomas. Father Man- 
sell obtains the deed of Bohemia, Cecil Co., Md. 

1722 — Wilham Hunter, at St. Thomas' Manor, Charles Co., Md. 
The rest the same. 

1723— George Thorold, St. Mary's Co., Md. Thomas Mansell; 
John Bennet ; Peter Atwood ; Joseph Greaton ; Richard 
Thomas. Father William Hunter died at Port Tobacco, 15th 
August, 1723. 

1724 — Thomas Hodgson, at Bohemia; George Thorold; Peter 
Atwood; Richard Thomas; William Gerard; John Bennet, 
vere or alias Gosling, was living at Annapolis, at Mrs. Car- 
roll's ; James Whitgreave came in December ; Francis 
Floyd ; Henry Whetenhall ; Peter Davis ; James Case. 
Father Thomas Mansell, alias Harding, died at St. Inigoes 
August 18th. 

1725 — George Thorold, Superior, at St. Thomas' Manor; the rest 
the same. 

1726 — George Thorold, Superior; the rest the same. Father 
Hodgson died at Bohemia, December the 18th. 

1727 — George Thorold, Superior ; Peter Atwood ; William Gerard ; 
Jas. Whitgreave; Henry Whetenhall; Francis Floyd; John 
Bennet ; Peter Davis ; Richard Thomas ; James Case ; 
Joseph Greaton. 

1728 — Peter Atwood, Superior; John Bennet at Annapolis. The 
rest as in the past year. 

1729 — George Thorold, Superior, at St. Thomas' Manor; Peter 
Atwood, in Charles Co. ; Father Francis Floyd died at New- 
town Manor, Nov, 13th. Father Bennet returned to England. 

1730 — George Thorold, Superior; Peter Atwood. 



174 CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 

1731 — George Thorold, Superior ; Peter Atwood ; Father Wm. 
Gerard died at St. Inigoes, the 16th of April. Father James 
Case died in the same station, the 15th of February. 

1732 — George Thorold, Superior ; Peter Atwood in St. Mary's Co., 
Md. ; Henry Whetenhall ; Father Robert Harding arrived. 

1733 — Peter Atwood, Superior, in St. Mary's Co., Md. George 
Thorold ; Henry Whetenhall, in Ann Arundel Co., Md. ; 
Robert Harding at St. Thomas' Manor ; Jas. Quin ; James 
Whitgreave in Ann Arundel Co. ; Joseph (rreaton at Philadel- 
phia, Penn. ; Richard Molyneux ; Vincent Philips ; James 
Farrar ; Arnold Livers. — Pennsylvania : St. Joseph's Church, 
Philadelphia, built this year. 

1734 — George Thorold was appointed Superior of the Maryland 
Mission in March ; Henry Whitenhall ; James Quin ; James 
Whitgreave in Ann Arundel Co. ; Robert Harding ; Peter 
Davis ; Richard Molyneux ; Thomas Gerard ; Arnold Livers 
at St. Thomas' Manor ; Vincent Philips ; some say that 
Father Thorold continued Superior until June, and that he 
was then succeeded by Father Atwood. Father Atwood died 
on Christmas Day, 1734, at the Newtown Manor. Father 
Thomas Leckonby, sen., died at Portobacco, Dec. 16th, 1734. 
Father John Fleetwood died on the 5th of January, probably^ 
at Newtown. 

1735. — Vincent Philips ; George Thorold ; James Quin ; Father 
Richard Thomas died the 16th of January. 

1736 — Richard Molyneux, Superior ; George Thorold. 

1737 — Richard Molyneux, Superior, at St. Thomas' Manor ; James 
Quin in Ann Arundel Co. ; James Whitgreave ; Robert 
Harding; Thomas Gerard; Vincent Philips; Arnold Livers 
at St. Thomas' Manor ; George Thorold, in Ann Arundel Co., 
Md. James Farrar in Ann Arundel Co. — Pennsylvania : Jos. 
Greaton at St. Joseph's Church. 

1738 — Richard Molyneux at St. Thomas' Manor ; George Thor- 
old ; Jas. Whitgreave, St. Mary's Co. ; James Farrar; Thomas 
Poulton came on the 4th or 28th of April. On this last day he I 
gave testimony to grants. 

1739 — Richard Molyneux, at St. Thomas' Manor (old indenture) ; 
Owen Joseph Kingsley, who spent some time on the Mary- 



4 



CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 1/5 

land Mission, died at Watten, the 24th of January, agad 42. — 
Pennsylvania: Jos. Greaton. 

1740 — Richard Molyneux, at St. Thomas' Manor ; Richard Arch- 
bold ; Robert Harding ; Arnold Livers, at Newtown. — Penn- 
sylvania : Joseph Greaton. 

1741 — Richard Molyneux; Thomas Poulton, in Charles Co.; 
George Thorold ; John Digges ; James Quin, in "Queen Ann 
County." — Pennsylvania: Joseph Greaton; Henry Neale ; 
Theodore Schneider, at Goshenhoppen. 

1742 — Thomas Poulton, at Bohemia Manor; Robert Harding; 
Benedict Neale, at Newtown ; James Quin ; Jas. Farrar, at 
Newtown ; Thos. Digges ; Arnold Livers, at Newtown ; Father 
George Thorold died the 15th of November, at St. Thomas' 
Manor. This venerable missionary had spent more than 
forty years in Maryland. — Pennsylvania: Joseph Greaton; 
Henry Neale ; Father William Wappeler purchased seven 
lots in Lancaster, Penn. ; Theodore Schneider. 

1743 — Richard Molyneux, at St. Thomas' Manor; Bennet Neale; 
James Farrar ; James Ashbey ; Thomas Poulton. — Pennsyl- 
vania : Joseph Greaton ; Henry Neale ; William Wappeler ; 
Theodore Schneider. 

1744 — Richard Molyneux ; Thomas Poulton ; James Farrar ; 
James Ashbey ; Thomas Poulton ; Bennet Neale. — Pennsyl- 
vania ; Joseph Greaton ; Henry Neale ; Theodore Schneider ; 
William Wappeler. This Father was for a part of 1744, at 
Newtown. 

1745 — Richard Molyneux; Thomas Poulton, at Bohemia; Vin- 
cent Philips ; Robert Harding ; James Farrar ; Arnold 
Livers ; Thomas Digges ; Benedict Neale ; James Ashbey. 
A school opened at Bohemia. Father James Whetenhall 
died the 27th of May, in England. Father Quin was 
accidentally killed in getting out of a ferry boat, which was 
being dragged by his horse, on Choptank River, November 
27th. — Pennsylvania : Joseph Greaton, Superior ; Theodore 
Schneider ; Henry Neale ; William Wappeler. 

1746 — The same with Father James Le Motte, alias Lancaster. 
Father Whitgreave in England. Thomas Poulton, at 
Bohemia. 



1/6 CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 

1747 — George Hunter at St. Thomas' Manor; Thomas Poulton, at 
Bohemia ; James Farrar ; Benedict Neale, at Deer Creek, 
Baltimore Co., Md. — Pennsylvania: Joseph Greaton ; The- 
odore Schneider ; Henry Neale ; WiUiam Wappeler. 

1748 — Richard Molyneux ; Robert Harding, Prince George's Co., 
Md. ; Vincent Philips, in St. Mary's Co., Md. ; Thomas 
Poulton, at Bohemia. John Kingdom, at Bohemia ; Father 
John Digges died. — Pennsylvania : Father Henry Neale died 
in Philadelphia. Father Wm. Wappeler returned to Europe. 
Richard Molyneux, Superior ; he returns to England the next 
year. 

1749 — Geo. Hunter, in Charles Co., Md. ; Vincent Philips ; John 
Kingdom, at Bohemia ; Robert Harding ; Arnold Livers ; 
Benedict Neale, at Deer Creek, Baltimore Co. ; Thomas 
Digges ; James Ashbey, St. Mary's Co. ; James Carroll ; 
Richard EUis ; James Lancaster ; James Breadnall, at St. 
Thomas' Manor. Father Thomas Poulton died at Newtown 
Manor, Jan. 23d. — Pennsylvania : Joseph Greaton, Theodore 
Schneider. 

1750 — George Hunter, at Port Tobacco ; John Kingdom, at New- 
town ; Benedict Neale, at Deer Creek ; John Lewis, at 
Bohemia ; Arnold Livers, at Newton ; Thomas Digges, in 
Sequanock ; Robert Harding ; James Ashbey, at St. Inigoes ; 
Theodore Schneider, in Penn. ; Jos. Greaton, at Bohemia. 

1751 — George Hunter; Benedict Neale; Joseph Greaton, at 
Bohemia. Father John Bennet, alias Gasling, died the 13th 
of April, in England. — Pennsylvania : Robert Harding ; 
Theodore Schneider. 

1752 — George Hunter ; Father Hunter made his Retreat at St. 
Inigoes ; Jos. Greaton. — Pennsylvania : Robert Harding ; 
Theodore Schneider, at Goshenhoppen. 

1753 — George Hunter; John Lewis, at Bohemia ; Benedict Neale, 

* at Deer Creek, Baltimore Co. Father Joseph Greaton died at 
Bohemia, the 19th day of August. Father John Lewis 
" officiated at his funeral." Father James Farrar died at 
Hooton in Cheshire, the 18th of July.— Pennsylvania : Robert 
Harding, at St. Joseph's, Philadelphia; Mathias Manners, 



CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. I// 

alias Sittinsperger, Conewago ; Theodore Schneider, in Here- 
ford Township, Berks County. 

1754 — John Lewis, at Bohemia ; George Hunter, at St. Thomas' 
Manor ; Michael Murphy, at Newtown Manor. — Pennsyl- 
vania: Robert Harding; Mathias Manners; Theodore 
Schneider. 

1755 — George Hunter; James Carroll; Michael Murphy. — Penn- 
sylvania ; Robert Harding ; Mathias Manners ; Theodore 
Schneider. 

1756 — Father George Hunter returned to England in October. 
Father James Carroll died at the Newtown Manor. Father 
James Lancaster died at Loretto, on the 3d of December. — 
Pennsylvania : Robert Harding, Theodore Schneider, Mathias 
Manners. 

1757 — James Ashbey, alias Middlehurst ; AVilliam Boucher. Fa- 
ther Boucher was but a short time on the Maryland Mission. 
He died in England on the 28th of September, in this year. — 
Pennsylvania : the same. 

1758 — Richard Molyneux died in England. George Hunter was 
in England in March of this year. Father Ferdinand Steyn- 
meyer, alias Farmer, came to Philadelphia, and remained in 
that city until his death, in 1786. John Lewis, at Bohemia ; 
James Breadnall ; James Ashbey, " late of Newtown," now at 
St. Thomas' Manor ; Father James Augustin Framback came 
with Father James Pellentz and two other Jesuits from Eng- 
land ; Father Pellentz spent ten years at Lancaster, Pennsyl- 
vania, and one year and a half at Frederick Town, Md. — 
Pennsylvania : the same. 

1759 — George Hunter, Superior, returned from England, the 1st of 
July. Father Peter Davis died in England, the 1st of July. 
Father Michael Murphy died at Newtown Manor ; John King- 
dom arrived from England with Father Hunter ; Joseph Mos- 
ley at Newtown. — Pennsylvania: Ferdinand Farmer, Robert 
Harding, Mathias Manners, Theodore Schneider. 

1760 — George Hunter ; Richard Boucher died in England ; Vin- 
cent Phillips died at Ghent, in Belgium ; John Kingdom, Jo- 
seph Mosley, at Newtow^n, Pastor of St. Joseph's Church, St. 
Joseph's Forest, St. Mary's County, Md. ; James Framback. — 



178 CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 

Pennsylvania : Father Frederick Leonards arrived, and 
formed a new settlement with German colonists. 

1761 — George Hunter; Thomas Gerard died in England; John 
Kingdom died at Portobacco ; Lewis Benjamin Roels arrived 
from England, the 24th of June ; John Lewis ; James Ashbey 
at St. Inigoes ; Arnold Livers, James Framback. Father 
John Digges died in November. — Pennsylvania : Ferdinand 
Farmer, Robert Harding. 

1762 — Ralph Falkner ; Father Joseph Hattersty arrived July 
12th ; Joseph Mosley at St. Thomas' Manor. 

1763 — St. Mary's Church, Philadelphia, was begun this year. Jo- 
seph Mosley, at St. Thomas', attending Sakia and Newport. 
John Williams at Frederick. He begins to build the Church 
and Residence. 

1764 — George Hunter ; Joseph Mosley went to Bohemia ; Father 
Frederick Leonards died the 28th of October, at Portobacco. 
— Pennsylvania : Ferdinand Farmer ; Robert Harding ; Fa- 
ther Theodore Schneider died at Goshenhoppen. 

1765 — George Hunter, Superior ; James Walton and Ignatius 
Matthews arrived in St. Mary's County in December ; John 
B. De Ritter and John Boone came on the 31st of May ; John 
Lewis at White Marsh ; Joseph Mosley settled at St. Joseph's, 
Talbot County, Md., on the 18th of March. — Pennsylvania: 
Ferdinand Farmer ; Robert Harding ; James Pellentz, at Phil- 
adelphia. 

1766 — ^James Ashbey, at Newtown Manor ; John Bolton and James 
Breadnall, at Newtown ; Richard Molyneux died in England, 
the 17th of May ; John Lewis ; Joseph Mosley. — Pennsylva- 
nia : Ferdinand Farmer ; Mathias Manners ; Robert Harding. 

1767 — George Hunter; Arnold Livers, at St. Inigoes; James Ash- 
bey died at Newtown ; James Walton. — Pennsylvania : Fer- 
dinand Farmer ; Robert Harding ; Philip O'Reilly, in Phila- 
delphia. 

1768 — George Hunter ; James Walton began to live alone at Fred- 
erick, the 27th of June ; John Williams left Frederick, July 
27th, and returned to England ; Joseph Hattersty and Peter 
Morris, at Newtown ; John Lewis; James Breadnall. — Penn- 
sylvania : Ferdinand Farmer ; Robert Harding. 



CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 1 79 

1769 — George Hunter, at St. Thomas' Manor ; James Walton, 
Manager at Newtown ; Joseph Mosley, at St. Joseph's, on the 
Eastern Shore of Maryland ; George Knight ; Joseph Hat- 
tersty, at Newtown ; John Lewis, at St. Inigoes ; Father Hun- 
ter went to Canada, May 24th, and thence to England ; Phihp 
O'Reilly returned to Ireland. — Pennsylvania : Ferdinand 
Farmer ; Robert Harding ; Luke Geisler arrived at Philadel- 
phia, March the 26th. . 

1770 — Father Hunter returned from England, May 18th ; James 
Breadnall ; Peter Morris ; John Lucas came from England ; 
John Boone returned from Europe (Father Hunter) ; James 
Walton ; Joseph Hattersty, at Philadelphia. 

1771 — John Lewis ; Peter Morris ; Robert Molyneux ; Joseph Hat- 
tersty died at Philadelphia, the 8th of May, aged 85 ; Father 
Hattersty was a most holy and zealous missionary ; James 
Pellentz ; James Walton, in St. Mary's County, Md. ; John 
Bolton arrived March 21st ; Mathias Manners, at Bohemia. 

1772 — John Lewis, in St. Mary's County, Md. Father James 
Breadnall died at Newtown, September the 1st, according to 
some. I think he died in 1775. 

1773 — Twenty Fathers in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Their 
names are : John Ashton, Thomas Digges, James Framback, 
Ferdinand Farmer, Luke Geisler, George Hunter, John Lewis, 
John Lucas, Mathias Manners, Ignatius Matthews, Peter 
Morris, Joseph Mosley, Benedict Neale, James Pellentz, Lewis 
Roels, Bernard Rich (Diderich), J. B. De Ritter, James Wal- 
ton, John Bolton, and Robert Molyneux. If it be true, as I 
have good grounds to think it is, that Father Harding's death 
occurred only in 1775, then there were twenty-one Fathers of 
the English Province in this country at the time of the Sup- 
pression. 

1774 — John Bolton ; Father Richard Gillibrand, who served the 
Maryland Mission for some time, died at Bath, March 23d. 
Robert Molyneux at Philadelphia ; Anthony Carroll in the 
same city ; John Carroll arrived on the 26th of June ; Sylves- 
ter and John Boarman came the 21st of March ; Chas. Sewall 
and Augustine Jenkins came the 24th of May ; Mathias Man- 



l80 CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 

ners at Bohemia ; Ferdinand Farmer at Philadelphia. John 
Baptist De Ritter at Goshenhoppen. 

1775 — John Lewis, Superior and Vicar-General, at St. Inigoes ; 
Austin Jenkins ; Robert Molyneux ; Mathias Manners died at 
Bohemia on the 15th of June ; Joseph Mosley at Bohemia ; 
Philip O'Reilly, a missionary for some time in Maryland, and 
afterwards distinguished in Guiana, died in Dublin the 24th of 
February ; Anthony Carroll left for England on the 7th or 8th 
of May. Bernard Diderick attended Baltimore and Elk Ridge 
from 1775 to 1784. 

1776 — Augustine Jenkins ; Peter Morris, at Bohemia ; James Wal- 
ton ; Ferdinand Farmer at Philadelphia ; Robert Molyneux at 
Philadelphia. 

1777 — Arnold Livers died at St. Inigoes, August 16th. 

1778 — George Hunter, at St. Thomas' Manor; James Walton, at 
Newtown ; Robert Molyneux, at Philadelphia. 

1779 — John Lewis, at Bohemia ; Superior and Vicar-General ; 
Robert Molyneux, at Philadelphia ; Father George Hunter 
died at St. Thomas', on August the 1st, and was buried beside 
Father John Kingdom and Father Leonards. Ignatius Mat- 
thews at Port Tobacco. 

1780 — John Lewis, Superior and Vicar-General; Ferdnand Far- 
mer and Robert Molyneux, at Philadelphia ; John Ashton ; 
Ignatius Matthews, at Port Tobacco ; James Walton, at New- 
town Manor ; Austin Jenkins with Father Walton ; John Car- 
roll, at his mother's residence in Montgomery County ; Thos. 
Digges ; Joseph Mosley, Talbot County, Md. ; Benedict 
Neale ; John Bolton, in Charles County ; Charles Sewall. 

1781 — Robert Molyneux, at Philadelphia; Father Wappeler died 
at Ghent, in Belgium, — an old paper before me says he died 
at Bruges. 

1782 — John Lewis, Superior, at Bohemia; Bernard Diderick; Ig- 
natius Matthews, at St. Thomas' Manor ; Peter Morris died 
suddenly at Newtown, November the 19th ; Lewis Roels. 

1783 — Ferdinand Farmer, at Philadelphia ; John Boarman, at Port 
Tobacco; Robert Molyneux, at Philadelphia. 

1 784 — James Walton succeeded Ignatius Matthews as* Pastor of St. 



CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. l8l 

Inigoes on the 19th of December ; Henry Pile arrived in the 
month of July ; John Boone. 

1785 — Robert Molyneux, at Philadelphia; Father Walton builds 
the second church at St. Inigoes. He laid the corner-stone 
on the 13th of Julv ; John Ashton, Procurator ; Ferdinand 
Farmer at Philadelphia ; James Pellentz, Conewago ; Charles 
Sewall, at Baltimore ; Luke Geisler, in Lancaster County, Pa. 
John Lewis, at Bohemia ; Henry Pile, at Newport, Charles 
County, Md. 

1786 — Father Ferdinand Farmer died at Philadelphia on the 17th 
of August ; Father John Baptist De Ritter died on the 3d of 
October ; Robert Molyneux at Philadelphia ; Luke Geisler 
and Francis Beeston with Father Molyneux; St. Peter's 
Church, New York City, was to have been opened on the 4th 
of November of this year. The " fi^st stone" of St. Peter's 
was laid by the Spanish Minister. Luke Geisler died at Cone- 
wago, August lOth. 

1787 — Robert Molyneux, at Philadelphia ; Francis Beeston with 
Father Molyneux ; Benedict Neale died at Newtown on the 
20th of March ; Joseph Mosley died at St. Joseph's, Talbot 
County, and was buried in the church which he himself had 
built ; John Bolton succeeded Father Mosley at St. Joseph's,. 
Eastern Shore of Maryland. 

1788 — Charles Sewall at Baltimore ; Father John Lewis died at 
Bohemia, the 24th of March. Robert Molyneux left Philadel- 
phia to succeed Father Lewis ; Francis Beeston at Philadel- 
phia ; Francis Neale left Li6ge on the 3d of April, and was in 
Baltimore in November ; John Bolton, at St. Joseph's, Talbot 
County. 

1789 — Robert Molyneux, at Bohemia. 

1790 — Francis Beeston, at Philadelphia, up to the 29th of May ; 
Charles Sewall, at Baltimore ; Robert Plunkett ; Francis Neale. 
Father Ignatius Matthews died at Newtown on the 11th of 
May. Francis Beeston spent a part of this year at Bohemia. 
Father Charles Neale, at Port Tobacco. 

1791— John Ashton and Robert Plunkett, at White Marsh ; Fran- 
cis Beeston, at St. Thomas' Manor. 



1 82 CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 

1792 — James Framback, at Frederick ; Charles Sewall, at Balti- 
more ; Father Charles Neale, at Port Tobacco. 

1793 — Bernard Diderick died in September, at Notley Hall ; Fran- 
cis Beeston, at St. Thomas' Manor; Charles Sewall, at Bo- 
hemia ; Father Charles Neale, at Port Tobacco. 

1794 — Father Louis Roels died at St. Thomas' Manor on the 27th 
of February ; Father John Lucas died on the 11th of Septem- 
ber ; Father Anthony Carroll was killed by robbers in London 
on the 5th of September ; Father John Boarman died at New- 
town ; Francis Beeston, at Baltimore. 

1795 — Father John Boone died at St. Inigoes on the 11th of April ; 
at the same station died Father James Framback, on the 17th 
of August. 

1796 — Robert Molyneux, at Georgetown College, in June ; Fran- 
cis Beeston, at Baltimore. 

1797 — John Ashton, at White Marsh ; Charles Sewall, Agent of the 
Corporation ; Robert Molyneux, at Newtown ; Henry Pile, at 
Newport, Charles County, Md. Francis Beeston, at Baltimore. 

1798 — James Walton, in St. Mary's County ; Charles Sewall, at St. 
Thomas' Manor ; Austin Jenkins, at Newtown ; Robert Moly- 
neux, Superior, at Newtown ; John Bolton, at St. Joseph's, 
Talbot County. 

1799 — Robert Molyneux, at Newtown ; John Bolton at St. Joseph's, 
Talbot County, Md ; Austin Jenkins, at Newtown ; Henry 
Pile, at Newport ; Charles Sewall, at St. Thomas' Manor. 

1800 — Father James Pellentz died at Conewago on the 13th of 
March ; P'ather Augustine Jenkins died at Newtown Manor, 
on the 2d of February ; Sylvester Boarman arrived at New- 
town, August 14th ; Robert Molyneux, at Newtown ; Henry 
Pile, at Newport. 

1801 — John Bolton, at St. Joseph's, Talbot County ; Robert Moly- 
neux, at Newtown ; Ignatius B. Brooke, at Newtown ; Henry 
Pile, at Newport ; Father Charles Neale, at Port Tobacco. 

1802 — John Bolton came to Newtown on the 7th of April ; Ignatius 
Baker Brooke, Newtown ; Robert Molyneux, Newtown, Fran- 
cis Neale, at Georgetown College. 

1803 — Robert Molyneux, Ignatius B. Brooke, and John Bolton, at 
Newtown ; Father Joseph Doyne died at St. Thomas' Manor, 



CATALOGUE OF EARLY JESUITS IN MARYLAND. 1 83 

Charles County, Md. ; Father James Walton died at St. In- 
igoes ; Henry Pile served at Newport and Cob Neck, Charles 
County ; Charles Sewall, St. Thomas' Manor ; Sylvester Boar- 
man, at St. Inigoes ; Francis Neale, at Georgetown ; Charles 
Neale, at Port Tobacco. 

1804 — Pvobert Molyneux, at Newtown ; Ignatius B. Brooke and 
John Bolton, at Newton ; Charles Sewall, at St. Thomas' 
Manor ; Sylvester Boarman, at St. Inigoes ; Francis Neale, at 
Georgetown College ; Henry Pile, at Newport, Charles Co., 
Md. ; Father Charles Neale, at Port Tobacco. 

1805 — Father Molyneux left Newtown in August, and went to 
Georgetown College ; he was appointed Superior of the Mis- 
sion, and resided at St. Thomas' Manor; Ignatius B. Brooke, 
John Bolton, at Newton ; Francis Beeston ; Sylvester Boar- 
man, at St. Inigoes ; Father Thomas Digges died at Balti- 
more ; Charles Sewall, St. Thomas' Manor ; Francis Neale, 
at Georgetown College ; Father Charles Neale, at Port To- 
bacco. 



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